Ghost Story
by Norwest
Summary: Harry Dresden and John Shepard are dead; of course, -being- dead doesn't mean -staying- that way. Trapped in alien worlds and surrounded by new, deadly enemies, they'll need every trick they know just to survive. You can't run from the Reaper forever - but you can make him work for it.
1. Chapter 1: Dresden

Ever had a story idea that you just couldn't get out of your head? This one wouldn't leave my imagination alone until I put it into writing. Just so you're warned, I deliberately copied the first chapter of the actual book Ghost Story very, very closely (go to "PenguinGroup" for the real thing, since FFnet won't let me publish the hyperlink here). SPOILER ALERT: this will spoil the entire Dresden Files book Changes, which would suck 'cuz it's a great read and better than anything I might write. Go read that first!

**A quick note on the two 'verses, if you're unfamiliar with one of them:**

The Dresden Files (the books, not the TV show) follow the story of Harry Dresden, Chicago wizard. Yes, wizard - in the phonebook under it, even. Dresden is a young, fairly powerful magic-user in an urban fantasy setting: the things that go bump in the night are real, and many of them think that human souls taste like chicken. Trolls live under bridges, vampires suck people's blood (and run international corporations), and regular old humans close our eyes and pretend to not see anything. Dresden is a private investigator for the Chicago PD, and a Warden for the White Council of wizards. (who've made a few attempts to separate Dresden's head from his neck) Dresden has gotten involved in quite a few events of apocalyptic proportions, and his latest crisis happened to kill him in the process. My story picks up directly after his death.

Mass Effect: In 2148, humans discovered that intelligent life had existed in the galaxy 50,000 years ago. In 2157, we found out that intelligent life _still_ exists in the galaxy, and that said intelligent life wasn't too happy about a bunch of primates going places they shouldn't. You are Commander Shepard, man/woman of the Systems Alliance Navy, and recently promoted to be a 'Spectre' of the alien Council. Sent to hunt down a rogue Spectre, you chase the 'turian' Saren Arterius across the galaxy and find out that there's a lot of dead space out there where some very nasty things are hiding and waiting. Dun-dun-DUN!

* * *

><p>It got dark.<p>

It got quiet.

_Die alone_, a bitter old man's voice whispered.

"Hush, now." The woman sounded familiar.

A light bloomed in the darkness, and I could hear the roar of an oncoming train.

_Typical_, I thought sourly. _Even when you're dead, it doesn't get any easier_.

I faced the oncoming train squarely, planting my body on the tracks and my hands on my hips. Get the girl, save the day, live happily ever after without gaping chest wounds: why couldn't the world follow the damn script properly?

"Hey! Cut!" I yelled at the howling light. "We're doing another take!"

"The hell's up with you, boy?" roared a voice beside my head, and a sudden pull yanked me from the rails and the blazing power flying along it.

The train roared past as I lay sprawled on the platform, snarling like the hungry wolf that'd just missed a juicy rabbit. Its sheer force pulled me along the cold cement, air whipping by as the unstoppable force hurtled down the tracks. My unseen guardian pinned my arm further, keeping me steadied while the train shot into the distance. Gasping for air, I chanced a look around as my heart rate stabilized.

I lay sprawled under fluorescent lights in a completely nondescript Chicago train station. I felt like I'd seen the place before, but there was nothing to identify it: no posters, no graffiti, just worn and chipped cement.

That, and a pair of polished black shoes near my head.

I looked up past cheap trousers and cheaper suit to find a thirty-something man staring back at me. He had a piercing gaze, a thinning hairline, and the eyes of a man who'd seen the world's worst but hadn't broken under it. He radiated quiet strength, helped by a linebacker build – hit him and you'd probably break a finger.

"Didn't your mama tell you not to play on the train tracks?" he admonished gently, mock-waving a finger at me. "Careful 'round the southbound trains, they've been running lickety-split lately."

I remained silent, staring up at the dead man. Add a few decades and a couple dozen pounds, and he was…

"C-Carm…" I trailed off. The day had been too much for me.

He chuckled, a deep bass rumble. "And you charge how much for that private eye work, again?"

"Um, you're," I trailed off again. "Y'know, dead. And stuff."

He grinned again. "Look who's talking, Dresden." Sergeant Ron Carmichael, formerly of the Chicago Police Department, Special Investigations Division, reached a hand down. I took it in a daze, standing and desperately trying to get my bearings.

Carmichael had been Murphy's partner, over ten years ago. He'd given his life to save her from a loup-garou, a psychotic werewolf. I watched him die.

"You look pretty good, for being dead."

He cocked his head. "Could say the same to you, pal." He tapped my uncovered left hand, and I glanced at the pink skin. My hand had come a long way since a vampire's psychotic thrall had turned it into charred steak, but it had remained a scarred mess that I wore a glove to cover.

Emphasis on _had_. The scars, and Lasciel's seal, were gone like they'd never been. I gaped silently at the miracle, trying to wrap my head around it. Carmichael let out another bass rumble. "Kid, you're not the first one to do that. C'mon."

In a daze, I let the probably-not-Carmichael lead me out of the train station, across a darkened street towards a waiting car. As the cop produced a set of keys from his pocket, I glanced around at the scenery.

We and the old, gold Mustang were alone on a long, dark street. Shadowed buildings towered forebodingly above us, the only light a dim glow from the train station's fluorescents and weak city lights nearby. I turned slowly, trying to see a landmark and finding none. That was fairly strange; I know Chicago damn well.

Carmichael saw me looking around. "Don't try. Those're all the buildings that coulda been, racked 'n stacked with the ones that are. It'll give you a headache thinking 'bout it." He blew air through his teeth. "Been here a long while, and it still gives me the heebie-jeebies sometimes."

I slowly climbed into the car, and we took off down the dark roads. Leaning back, I tried to think through my fragmented memories and the events of the past few minutes. My subconscious is the part of me that analyzes the scary monsters while my consciousness gets on with the important tasks of panicking and running, and the black-wearing bastard had some things to say now.

"This isn't Chicago."

"Knew those detective skills would make an appearance eventually."

"So, where are we?"

"Between," Carmichael responded cryptically.

"Between what?"

"Between what," he answered amiably. "Between who. Between where. Between when."

I glanced up. "You left out 'why.'"

He grinned, white teeth reflecting the streetlamps' light. "Nah. We like why a lot around here. Real interested in it, you could say."

I mulled it over for a minute. "Why am I here?"

"No beating 'round the bush? Shame."

My glower at the detective slid off like water. "Why am I here instead of…I dunno, being where I should be?"

Carmichael tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. "Hmm, maybe you're still in the water and this is all a hallucination. Maybe you shouldn't'a tried those shrooms from the local dealer. My money's on a delusion, personally."

"Being here? With you? I've met my subconscious and he's not that sick."

The detective let out another laugh. "But that could be what's happening. And that's the point."

"I don't get it. At all."

"And that's the point, too."

My glower could've melted steel by now.

Still grinning, he said, "Kid, you're seeing as much as you can handle right now. We're in a place that looks a lot like Chicago, driving through the rain in my old Mustang, because that's how far your limits go." He tapped his chin in contemplation. "Unless you really like drooling and straitjackets. Me, never saw the appeal much."

I snorted. "Bring it on."

"No." He looked dead serious. The rest of the ride passed in silence.

* * *

><p>Carmichael parked the Mustang in front of a building that could've been lifted straight from an old cop show. As we left the car and headed towards the entrance, I slowed as old paranoid instincts reasserted themselves. "You haven't said where we're going yet."<p>

"The office. C'mon."

I glared at him again. "Can't say any more than that?"

He looked around. "Not here. Not safe. Too much listening in."

I glanced down the street. Darkened buildings with empty windows stared back, faceless shapes leering at me like something out of Heinlein's nightmares. A forest of streetlights and traffic signals stretched out as far as I could see, unblinking lights illuminating yet more deserted streets.

"Real scary neighborhood around here. Better watch my wallet, with all those cutthroats hanging around."

Carmichael looked over at me, face lacking even a hint of a grin. "There are Things out here, Dresden. There are Things worse than death, and if you've got two grains of common sense you'll get away from that empty night before it gets _you_."

I snorted in disbelief, but…

Some Thing had caught my eye, lurking down yet another deserted side street. It looked like shadow, but no shadow I'd ever seen was so…_fluid_. There was intelligence in that darkness, a purpose that I sure as hell didn't want to meet in person. I shuddered and followed Carmichael into the old-school building.

Carmichael didn't give me any shit about my fear, which frightened me in some way. Trying to dispel the chill, I glanced around the well-lit hallway. It was blank and whitewashed, deserted except for the front and back doors, fluorescent lighting, and the cop watching the door.

His uniform was Perfect with a capital P: every crease in place, lily-white gloves and an unfamiliar badge on his hat, with a single service revolver hanging from his belt. A sheriff's star and a small nametag adorned his chest, with no hint of lint or dirt anywhere. His features followed the same pattern: strong, steady, and utterly calm.

I looked over the guard again, and reached for my Sight. Wizards like me get quite a few freaky powers, chief among them the Sight. Whether you call it the Third Eye, Evil Eye, or Googly Eyes (my personal favorite), it's the ability to see things as they are. No illusions, no bullshit: with the Sight open, you see the flows of power that are hidden from regular old mortals. It's dangerous. See something in your Sight, and you'll never forget it – the image stays burned into your head permanently. See the wrong image, and you'll end up a drooling wreck. I'd seen Mab with my Sight when she unleashed her full power, and it'd nearly killed me.

Still, this Chicago was a very thin veneer over a very long drop, and I needed something better to stand on. Opening my Sight, I concentrated on something nice and safe: Carmichael's back. Nothing happened for a second, then…

Gleaming white wings burst from the former detective's back, his cheap suit transforming into robes of white and gold. Carmichael's service revolver lengthened in time with the faded holster, the gun's handle becoming straight while a cross guard sprouted from the barrel. The drab hallway around me swam in my Sight, cheap whitewash turning into gleaming marble while the lights became– and then the gleaming figure on my right turned from the door from a second and stated simply, "No."

My Sight vanished, and I found myself left in a small hallway with two Chicago cops. I looked over at the beat cop looking at the door: his nametag read "Amitiel."

"Thanks, Officer Amitiel," Carmichael rumbled, tipping a nonexistent hat at the guardian angel standing by the door. Amitiel did the same, smiling at some hidden joke, as Carmichael guided me away from the outside. I was too stunned to protest, the crystal-clear memories of my Sight still bouncing around in my head.

I found myself in a precinct room, the type with desks instead of cubicles. It looked like any Chicago PD office, populated by men and women wearing uniforms or plainclothes that screamed "cop." All of them were busy writing, answering phones, or engaged in other cop-ly duties, except for a man in the corner whose bearing reminded me of…well, me. As Carmichael steered me towards him, I studied the strange newcomer.

He had dark buzzed hair, piercing brown eyes, and a bearing that might as well have held up a sign saying "Military here!" I shuddered slightly as I approached: the last 'military' person like him I'd met, who I'd nicknamed 'Buzz,' had tried to kill me and steal a Sword that I guarded. This man, however, had none of Buzz's tenseness and still energy, replaced instead by an eerie tranquility. He was young, too young for the deathly stillness that seemed to surround him like a miasma. If he didn't have PTSD, I'd eat my nonexistent psychologist's license. He wore a strange, skintight body armor, and a holster-less pistol rested on his hip.

I could see him giving me the same once-over as I approached. Recognizing someone as lost as me, I stuck out my hand: "Harry Dresden." The too-young veteran did the same as we shook hands: "John Shepard."

"You boys done checkin' each other out?" Carmichael drawled steadily. I glared at him again, getting another grin in return, and together Shepard and I followed the burly detective deeper into the precinct.

As Carmichael threaded his way through the semi-crowded building, Shepard and I in tow, I glanced around at my new companion. He was wearing a small arsenal on his back: I could recognize at least three different weapons there, discounting the holster-less pistol on his hip and the flat disks on his chest that were clearly grenades. "Loaded for bear?" I asked as innocently as I could.

"Bear?" he responded in surprise. Inspiration struck him after a few seconds: "Oh. Right. Earth mammal." I left the remark pass, distracted by Carmichael apparently reaching where we were supposed to go. He knocked, immediately getting a muffled reply from inside. Shepard and I followed the detective in.

"Boys, this is the captain," announced Carmichael. "Name's Jack." I gave him and the room a once-over. It was a small office, well-used but clean. It had a wooden desk with an inbox and outbox, a rotary phone, but lacked a computer. Two sheets of paper were placed at the center of the desk, the man behind it studying them intensively.

The man behind the desk, like Carmichael, was at the thirtysomething intersection of youthful energy and the experience that follows age. Built like a boxer, he had a nose that'd been repeatedly broken, forearms that resembled tree trunks in both texture and strength, and a white shirt that'd been unbuttoned and rolled up. His eyes were blue, his hair blonde, his jawline shaped like a bulldog, and his features were familiar somehow.

"Captain," said Carmichael. "Dresden and Shepard."

Jack looked us both over, saying nothing. He didn't stand.

"Don't mind the captain, he's like this 'fore he's had some coffee," muttered Carmichael in a stage voice.

"I'd murder for some coffee, or caf at least," answered Shepard. I honestly couldn't tell if he was serious or not.

"Dresden, Shepard. You hungry?"

"Nope."

"Thirsty?"

Shepard shook his head.

"That's because you're dead," responded Jack. "No need for it. No coffee."

"I stand by my statement," responded Carmichael brightly. He glanced at Jack and hooked his thumb. "I should get on that rakshasa thing, shouldn't I?"

Jack didn't look up. "Go."

Carmichael strode confidently out, a man on a mission. Shepard and I sat, both of us too tired to fidget. Looking over, I could see the telltale signs of deep weariness: slouched in the chair, eyes boring into the wall, hands slumped against his side – Shepard hadn't died easily.

Jack continued his calm stare. Slightly unnerved, I responded with my usual defense. "Hmm. Dying. Not what I expected, really."

"You're not dead. Yet," responded Jack.

Shepard spoke up. "We died. Afterlife. Not the club."

"No," answered Jack. "This is between. Purgatory. In-the-middle."

"Sooo…we need to clean our acts up?" I was fairly confused. The Powers That Be hadn't taken too much of an interest in me before. Well, aside from Uriel. That archangel had some serious issues.

"No," Jack stated. I had a feeling he said that a lot. "You're here because your deaths were irregular."

"I got shot. Didn't go alone," responded Shepard. "Sounds simple to me."

"Got shot too, just on my lonesome," I said. "Or drowned. Still pretty regular, though."

"No," Jack replied. Definitely his favorite response. "You both died because the other side cheated."

We blinked nearly in unison.

"The other side? You mean…actual Fallen angels?" I don't know how I managed to speak the capital F, but it came out somehow.

Jack shrugged. "If you want. The important part is that they're the enemy."

Shepard spoke up. "Because they…broke the rules, somehow?"

"You were both in the way. They broke the rules to make you disappear. Now you're my problem."

"How'd they break the rules?" Shepard seemed interested.

Jack glanced at him. "You? They fixed a fabricator. One batarian carried a weapon that should've broken." He turned to me. "You? A cop went out for donuts."

I didn't know what to say. "Then…fuck donuts."

Jack gave a short bark. "Heh. You're dead. Get used to it."

Shepard and I blinked again. Shepard stood rock-still, while I fidgeted alongside him, trying to wrap my head around it.

I felt the leather duster draped over my shoulders. It'd been shredded during the battle in Mexico, and had been more of a fond memory than an actual object when I'd been shot. Yet here it was, its warded surface keeping me warm from a deep chill.

That's when it hit me. I'd been shot.

I was dead.

Holy _shit_, I was dead.

My apartment, my city, Maggie, Murphy – they were all gone. I found my legs shaking, and collapsed into a nearby chair.

Brown eyes gazed into mine steadily, and I raised my head to meet Jack's gaze. "Son, you've got to deal with this on your own. It happens to all of us, but that don't make it any easier."

I looked to my left, and saw Shepard standing still. His flint-grey eyes softened at my collapse, and he sighed slightly. "Did that earlier. Cried my lungs out. Felt like Akuze all over again." He paused. "It gets better."

His terse response, oddly enough, actually helped slightly. Gathering my legs, I stood next to the traumatized veteran and faced the Captain. "Alright. I'm ready."

He chuckled. "For now."

His tone annoyed me, and I used that to anchor my bearings. "So what happens next? Where do we go?"

Jack's cop face showed nothing but a slight tinge of disapproval. "Look, kiddies, you're both stuck here 'till-" His speech was cut off by the ringing phone. Looking irritated, Jack grabbed it and answered tersely: "Here."

His voice lowered, and I found myself unable to hear Jack talk without Listening in. Considering what had happened when I'd tried to use my Sight, I decided to not risk it. Instead, I turned to Shepard next to me. "You died shooting, yeah?"

Shepard nodded once. "Slavers, pirates. They went for a colony. Tried to hold them." He looked at me. "You?"

"Vampires."

"Vampires?"

"Vampires."

"Bullshit." I couldn't blame Shepard for thinking that. Then again, there were a lot of things that went bump in the night around here – and he didn't believe that they existed. This could be bad.

I made up my mind, and looked Shepard straight in the eyes. It took only a few seconds to trigger the soulgaze.

Ever looked into someone's eyes, long enough that you saw something in them? You both might look away, embarrassed by such a social faux pas, but for an instant there's a connection between you two.

Gazing into a wizard's eyes takes that a step further. You see their soul – such as it is – and they do the same to yours. Since souls can't be seen or heard, you'll interpret it in different ways according to how you interpret reality. Ramirez, a Warden buddy of mine, said that his soulgazes always took the form of a song. Mine were, in typical me-fashion, completely screwed up.

When I gazed into Shepard's soul, I found myself standing in a room of mirrors. Glancing down, I saw myself wearing an unfamiliar suit of armor, similar to the gear Shepard had been wearing earlier. "N7" was painted on the chest, and a red stripe snaked down the right shoulder. I looked ahead, and saw my own face, wearing the strange armor, gazing back from the cockpit of a massive starship.

Creepy. I looked to the right and saw myself again, similarly dressed, firing weapons at…bugs? Another mirror, and I was shooting at a massive _thing_ that had burst from the ground, sprinting away as the cover I'd been hiding behind melted into goo. Another mirror, and I was a wasted shadow, a shriveled man that clutched at a tattered robe while unfamiliar creatures squabbled over hunks of trash nearby. Another mirror…

The images rushed by me, overwhelming my senses and sending me toppling. I felt myself clutching the swivel chair with an iron-strong deathgrip, knuckles white from the strain. Hearing a gasp, I looked up to see Shepard doing the same. We looked at each other silently.

"Oh."

Whatever else Shepard might have said was interrupted by the _clunk_ of Jack's rotary phone hitting the receiver. We mortals both gathered what remained of our strength and turned to see Jack glaring at us, a wrinkle carving a groove deep into his forehead.

"You boys are in a mess of trouble," he began. I ignored his baritone, trying instead to fit the world around me into something recognizable. A place with an honest-to-God guardian angel at the door, the boss getting a 'call…' I gulped slightly.

Jack noticed, but gave no sign other than a slight smirk. "Like I said, orders from On High just came down. You're going back." Shepard and I waited for the inevitable catch, but heard nothing. I grew suspicious. "You didn't say where we're going 'back' to."

For the first time, Jack grinned. It wasn't a pleasant sight. "True. The boss is mixing things up. Take a guess."

Shepard and I reached the conclusion at the same time. I heard a strangled gasp on my left even as I tried to cope with the latest revelation. Something in my head snapped: after a fun day of assaulting and destroying the entire Red Court, rescuing my daughter and killing her mother, dying and narrowly missing a 'southbound train,' and getting sent to a new _universe_…something in my brain just gave up.

My subconscious took over. I turned to Shepard even as he looked over at me: "Shepard, where'd you die, what was your mission, what enemies were you facing, anything I-"

"Colony called Terra Nova, attackers are pirates and it's an asteroid, shoot anything that looks funny and don't trust all the humans, shut down the fusion…rockets and watch out they have shields." All in one breath, too.

Back on the lifelong subject of shooting things, I recovered slightly. "You're headed to Earth, year is 1996, Chicago, USA. All the old bedtime stories are real: ghouls, vampires, demons, elves, wizards. Assume they want to eat your soul, most of them do anyway. Head to St. Mary's Church, center of town, ask for Father Forthill. Say that Dresden sent you…" my voice trailed off. No one would believe Shepard's story without proof. Could I send anything to prove it?

I looked over my possessions: my leather duster, my hat, my blasting rod, a few coins. From Shepard's description, I'd need the duster and my blasting rod, and nothing else I had was instantly recognizable as mine. Acting on a whim, I closed my eyes and silently asked Someone above for a little help.

Apparently God has a good sense of humor, because when I stuck my hand into my pocket I pulled out my old windup Mickey Mouse alarm clock, in its original battered glory. I'd had it since I was ten, and no matter how many hexes I promised to deliver on its head every morning, I had missed the little thing after it was destroyed in the fire. I handed the old alarm clock over after a bad twinge of nostalgia, although Shepard just looked at it quizzically. "Ask for someone named Murphy, Chicago police. Tell her Dresden really wanted to go on that date."

Shepard nodded, understanding what I meant. He looked around his own gear, likely planning something similar, before pulling out a small gold coin and tossing it to me. I caught it and turned it over, seeing nothing but a holographic bar on one side and a logo saying "N3" on the other.

Shepard spoke up at my quizzical look: "Important. Use it." Truly a man of few words: if he brewed amazing beer, I could've mistaken him for my bartender Mac. I nodded, but was interrupted by Jack again: "Ready to go?"

We mortals looked up at the angel in horror: "Now?" Jack simply grinned again. "Yep." My sarcasm defense immediately kicked in: "Well, Mr. Angel, do you expect me to talk?"

Jack grew serious again. "No, Mr. Dresden, I expect you to survive." He picked up the two sheets of paper that had been on his desk, placed them in his outbox, and my vision went black.

Again.

Stars and _stones_, it's been a long day.


	2. Chapter 2: Dresden

I awoke to gunfire and screams. And a headache.

Not that it was gunfire like anything I'd ever heard. Instead of the _crack-crack-crack_ of assault rifles, I heard a muted _thudthudthudthud_ mixed alongside a staccato **boom-boom-boom.** It felt like three different sound stages were testing their bass at the same time, and my ears rang from the noise.

The screams were different, too. You hear plenty of screaming in my line of work, and you quickly learn to tell the difference between a scream of pain and one of fear. These screams were inhuman, but completely unlike your bog-standard faerie howls or animal roars. To quote Waldo Butters, "Human-like, but definitely nonhuman."

My subconscious idly continued commenting on the sounds while instinct said "Screw this" and took control. Self-preservation elbowed my conscious mind into a corner, as my aching brain gave up on trying to handle the shocks I'd been put through.

Like I said. Long day.

Years spent avoiding drooling horrors from beyond the Outer Darkness saved me yet again, as a thunderous explosion **boom**ed from the floor where my body had just been. As my spine made a lifelong partnership with a nearby crate, I cautiously craned my head around and took stock of my surroundings.

My spine's new best friend had plenty of company: I was holed up in a futuristic-looking warehouse, with crates scattered haphazardly across the floor. Black-armored shapes fired rifles at tan-armored ones, a few bodies sprawled out under the harsh white light while something similar to gunfire _whizzed_ overhead. I caught a glimpse of the nearest body, and as I expected it was "human, but definitely nonhuman."

The corpse next to mine, however, was entirely human. John Shepard's black-armored body lay next to me, dead when Someone had decided to cheat. With his shattered helmet at his side and his neck turned into ground beef by an impact, he should've still been bleeding from the wound, but his corpse was obviously ice-cold.

I shelved my thoughts, scrabbling for my shield bracelet with my left hand while my right snagged my blasting rod. I glanced around the corner of the box, but couldn't see a thing, and stood up to see what was happening.

God kicked me in the gut. And He was wearing steel-toed boots.

My back hit the metal deck with a _thud_, gasping as I desperately sucked in air like I'd been stomach-punched. I glanced down to see a tiny cloud of smoke rising from a small scorch mark on my leather duster.

"Hell's bells," I wheezed. My duster was my combat armor, and was more spell than leather at this point. It could (and had) saved me from more nasty gribblies than I could count. Seeing it damaged, even partially, from a single bullet frightened the bejeezus out of me.

Gathering my focus and extending my left hand, I rose up again. This time, when an enemy popped up to fire a futuristic weapon at me, the…bullets?...sparked off my shield bubble.

I winced as the impacts shook my footing and my concentration, but extended my blasting rod at the target and hissed, "_Fuego!_" Runes flared to orange life along the carved wooden stick, a jet of flame snaking out as I ignited the air between points A and B.

The effect was instantaneous: the un-helmeted alien took the small blast of fire straight to the face, blue lights flaring around him as he roared and stumbled into the open. A stream of…bullets?...slammed into the enemy soldier, dropping him instantly. With the immediate threat gone, I ducked back under cover, just in time to meet another soldier coming around the side of my spine's favorite crate.

He was, again, "human but definitely not." Four eyes blinked at me from a face that looked like it'd been flattened a few too many times against a door. Multiple nostrils hissed as the tan-armored alien tried to draw in air, the weapon in his hands turning to shoot-

-and he roared that inhuman howl, stumbling back as I poked my blasting rod into one of his eyes. Hey, there were plenty to choose from. I could see that damn gun swinging towards me again, and I knew I was out of options. "_Ventas servitas!_" I yelled, and wind shot from my outstretched hand to strike the soldier and send him flying backwards. His head struck another crate and the alien lay very, very still.

I kept moving, ducking back under cover even as some corner of my mind gibbered in fear. I'd tried to save the soldier, punting the alien with wind instead of roasting him, but he'd died anyway. I'd killed a living creature. With magic. The White Council would have my head for this – literally.

I slowed my breathing and tried to think rationally. The White Council might kill me later, but these aliens were perfectly happy to kill me right _now_. At the moment, nothing else mattered more than simply surviving the next few minutes.

Thankfully, these enemies seemed to be using advanced weapons, and any technology made later than World War Two usually suffered a bad case of the deads around me, from my ambient magic alone. When I _tried_ to blow something up, well… Gathering energy, I turned towards the sound of shooting and muttered, "_Hexus_."

An invisible wave of force swept out from my hands, making me wince at the headache. Without my staff or any foci other than my blasting rod and shield bracelet to channel magic, I was inaccurate and sloppy, the magical equivalent of a thug. Still, if it worked then I'd happily embrace my thuggish ruggish side. I listened carefully, waiting for the yells of fear as weapons broke and electronics failed.

_Thudthudthudthud-_ Weapons continued firing, uninterrupted. The lights above kept shining merrily, unaware that they were supposed to be exploding by now. "Fuck," I cursed harshly, trying to improvise. For whatever reason, I couldn't disable their weapons with my tried-and-true methods for 'fixing' mortal technology. I'd often hated my "Murphyonic effect" – and there I went, quoting Butters again – but against human enemies, it leveled the playing field quite nicely. Without it, I felt exposed.

I stood up again, this time with the green-tinted bubble of my improved shield ready to ward off an attack. None came. There was only one tan-armored alien in the corner, suppressed by heavy fire, and as I kept watching, a Frisbee-shaped disc improbably flew across the room and latched onto the remaining alien.

Shaking my head to clear my ringing eardrums, I glanced around at my 'saviors.' They moved forward in pairs, clearing the room with the ease of practiced professionals. The gears in my head ground slowly as I tried to think of what to say: 'Hi, God said I should help out here?' 'Your buddy got recalled and I'm the replacement?' 'I went to heaven and all I got was this stinking headache?' 'Anyone order a piz-'

"Turn around. Slowly." With a gun barrel prodding me in the back, I casually let my arms drop to my side, my right hand already tucking my blasting rod out of view. Shepard obviously hadn't believed in magic, so hopefully they wouldn't either – then again, professionals didn't underestimate weapons, even something like a pointy stick.

"Hi. What's happening here?" I kept my tone light and my shoulders relaxed. Humans notice small changes in each other's posture, and tensing up in front of a keyed-up soldier could end very, very badly for me.

"LT, Shepard's down, sniper got him. There's some funny-looking human over here. Orders?" I remained silent, hoping they'd simply leave me to figure out where I was, who wanted to kill me, and how to keep my head attached to my neck.

"Simmons, we're on the clock! Leave Shepard, cuff the crazy and go!" came the irritated reply. I tried to not let my exhilaration show, keeping my features neutral as another soldier stomped over behind me. Heavy cuffs _clunk_ed onto my wrists, holding them securely behind me. I tested the binding, making sure that my blasting rod stayed hidden.

The soldier who'd cuffed me faced me squarely. Hefting his rifle, the helmeted man glared at me through his visor: "Look, numbnuts, I don't know who you are or why you're here. We're coming back here once we've killed these batarians, and if you killed Shepard then I _suggest_ you tell us now."

As intimidation efforts go, it actually wasn't that bad. He gave a decent death-glare, and the black armor didn't hurt. Compared to millennia-old vampires that could render me helpless by staring, though, he was a complete pansy. I gave him my sincerest grin, getting a growl in return, and waited for the soldiers to exit the warehouse.

As the last one strode out, his rifle fixed on me, I carefully slid my blasting rod into my hand. The heavy metal cuffs were thick and strong, but they didn't do diddly to stop me from using magic. I carefully channeled power through my blasting rod, stifling the reflexive twitch that the troll-made thorn manacles had left in me. As my blasting rod heated up, the runes on the side flaring to fiery life, I reversed the grip in my hand and stabbed the rod's white-hot tip into the center of the cuffs.

"Aaaah!" In my rush to get free, I'd forgotten a basic principle of magic: physics is a mean bitch when she wants to be. Call up a fireball, and it'll still consume air and create heat. Here, I'd forgotten that the metal in the cuffs conducted heat too damn well. I could feel the cuffs warping under my blasting rod, but my wrists were literally burning from the heat.

Hell with it, I decided. I'd already gotten this far, and I needed to get free before any more of those "batarians" showed up. I gritted my teeth and continued to cut, ignoring the pain shooting up my arms and the faint sizzle of burning skin.

The red-hot metal finally gave way under the heat of my blasting rod, folding like dough down the center and leaving my hands free. Something electronic in the cuffs decided that it'd had enough, and the severed cuffs split to leave my wrists free. I carefully peeled the cuffs from my skin, wincing as they tore burned flesh with them, before tossing the metal aside and picking up my dropped gear.

My leather duster. A blasting rod. My .44, with two speed reloaders. My hat. We now shed a tear for my missing staff, which would have let me channel magic effectively and also let me hit enemies on the head. Poking them in the eye might work, but it didn't have the same _gravitas_ to it.

I straightened up, trying to make sense of the universe after my whirlwind tour through it in the past twelve hours. As much as 'hours' applied to being dead, anyway. I'd been on a world tour of Earth courtesy of the Nevernever, visited Valhalla for a cuppa coffee with Odin One-Eye, walked into the Chichen Itza and trash talked an Elder Abomination, died, been resurrected in someplace out of a bad sci-fi novel, and was now trying to save a world from total annihilation. Dying had been the least crazy thing to happen to me in the past day.

I was exhausted, mentally and physically. My resurrection had brought all of my old aches and pains, from a scar I'd gotten at age five to claw marks from a little hoedown with the Red Court. I was tired out, strung out, and apparently responsible for an entire world. It had broken my poor mortal brain so badly that only one thing could fix it.

A good one-liner.

"I don't believe in aliens!" I bellowed, running towards the sounds of gunfire.

* * *

><p>"Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow." As it turns out, not believing in the bug-eyed aliens doesn't stop them from believing in you. It also doesn't stop them from believing that they can put holes in you, and their guns are fairly powerful articles of their faith.<p>

I kept my left arm outstretched, my shield flickering under the stress and my eyes aching from the light show. I was merrily bumping along the ceiling, and nearly every alien below had decided that my ass needed a few chunks taken out of it.

I had originally stormed through the door, sending a quick blast of fire towards the aliens to grab their attention. My shield had held up against the storm of fire, and I'd provided a wonderful distraction for the human commandos who were busy not dying under the many, many aliens in the room. Then I'd made the fatal mistake of thinking to myself, "Hey, this might work!"

Predictably, me taunting Murphy made him taunt me right back. An alien far in the back of the control room had stood up, done _something_ that made him glow purple, and sent me to my current predicament. To make it worse, gravity decided that now was the time to behave normally. Still hovering near the ceiling, I dropped like a rock. I found myself heading far too fast towards the ground, spread-eagled and yelling in fear. I stretched my hand out, yelling an inarticulate spell even as gravity decided to make me its plaything again.

Spells are delicate things. I use foci to channel my magic because I would otherwise have to invoke each component of the spell at the same time, without any extraneous thoughts, in the proper order. Think of it like whistling the "Star-Spangled Banner" while riding a unicycle across a rope wire suspended over Hell. And vultures are trying to eat you. Screw it up, and Bad Things start happening.

My screwed-up spell took effect even as the sudden meeting between me and the floor decided to reschedule for next week. I found myself drifting slowly through the air, even as a massive pulse of energy shot forward. One of the black-armored commandos, haloed in purple light and face creased in concentration, waved with his hands and I found myself finally back on the ground.

I groaned in exhaustion and despair, seeing my mistaken spell get to work. Earth magic. Thinking about hitting the ground had made me summon earth magic. Like its namesake, it was slow to move and an energy hog but almost unstoppable once it started going. The pulse of force ripped through cover, aliens, and the wall like they were all made of paper, bursting the side of the control room.

The wall buckled, the atmosphere roaring out into…space. Right. I shook my head, trying to equalize my ears even as a blue shield sprung up over the broken wall. The three commandos left sprinted forward with guns roaring, using the distraction to mop up the remaining aliens in a hail of fire.

Gasping for the air that suddenly didn't seem to be there, I slowly stumbled to my feet and looked drunkenly around the room. Leaving aside the dead bodies heaped everywhere, the room could've been lifted from the set of _Star Trek_ after yet another run-in with the Borg. Glowing consoles, some on fire, flickered unsteadily as text scrolled across them. The lights overhead swung crazily as my accidental earth magic tore on into the asteroid.

"Turn around. Slowly." I slowly turned around yet again, seeing yet another black-armored human commando pointing a rifle at me. Schooling my features into neutrality and summoning my vast bullshit reserves, I prepared for the lie of a lifetime.

"I just arrived. Sitrep." The unfamiliar jargon flew off my lips with the ease borne of working with cops. Police-lingo and military-lingo might be different, but in the end grunting at someone and glaring them down worked pretty well.

Nonplussed, the commando kept glaring at me. "Why're you wearing that crazy getup? And didn't we cuff you earlier?" Searching for a response, I cast my mind back to bad action flicks from my '80s childhood. God help me.

"I was stowing away, before you schmucks tore apart my plan. And next time, get a better pair of cuffs." I silently thanked whoever was watching that Bob the Skull would never see this, or he would laugh his nonexistent ass off.

The soldier's eyes narrowed. "Really? Prove it." Desperately trying to bullshit him, inspiration struck as I remembered Shepard's last words. Reaching into my duster's pocket, I pulled out the strange coin that Shepard had given me, passing it "N3"-side up to the soldier.

He glanced at the coin, passing the hologram side of the coin over his left hand. Something beeped, and his forearm lit up in an orange lightshow. I wisely kept my trap shut, trying to get an escape plan ready before he realized that I was a fraud.

"Sarge! We've got an N3 agent here. A biotic, too."

"No shit?" croaked a voice from one of the corpses nearby. The soldier and I both flinched and looked over at the wounded man trying to sit up. Unlike the other humans, his black armor had a single "N6" emblazoned on it, and his left hand was busy holding his guts in. The soldier and I, in unspoken mutual agreement, quickly flanked N6 and rested his back against a nearby crate.

"You," wheezed the dying man, pointing a finger at me. I froze like a deer in the headlights. "Wear a goddamned helmet." N6 slowly reached up and removed his own, handing it to me. I gingerly reached for the non-bloodstained parts of the helmet, wondering what the hell was going on. N6 saw my look and grimaced: "Shepard got shot in the head. Get his armor, but use my helmet."

"Sir?" asked the other soldier, frantically spraying some aerosol over N6's wound. "Sir, you can't-"

"I'm dead anyway, Havers. When you turn the power off to kill the fusion torch, you'll open the place to vacuum." He grinned at me unsteadily. "Next time, can you not destroy the building?"

I grimaced. "Buildings and I don't get along too well."

We all laughed weakly, until N6 started coughing. I recognized a death rattle when I heard it, and apparently he did too. "Go," he ordered, in a voice that brooked no disagreement.

The other soldier straightened up. "So…I'll…access the power?" he announced unsteadily. "Yeah," I responded. I felt sick: I'd screwed up, and badly. I didn't even know N6's name, but he would die because of my mistake

Hell's bells, it'd been a long day.

I numbly went back to the start, finding Shepard's cold corpse right where it'd fallen. I avoided the eyes as I quickly pulled off pieces of armor, fumbling for the hidden catches across the gear. Havers, the other soldier, helped me suit up in Shepard's gear as I tried to cope. No matter that N6 had ordered it, I still felt like a grave robber, or a ghoul. Just with less face-eating.

The gruesome job done, I straightened up slowly in the unfamiliar gear. I'd left the shoulder pads off, but the rest of the armor had stretched to – barely – fit my too-tall frame. "That do it?"

Havers frowned. "You know, it helps if you actually turn it on." He reached to my neck, flicking a switch, and the armor went from feeling like lead to feather-light. My astonishment should've shown on my face, because Havers laughed slightly. "Don't worry, Luddite, the barriers are working fine too."

Shaking my head and carefully fixing the helmet on my head, I reached for my discarded gear. Havers watched silently as I struggled into my leather duster and grabbed my blasting rod, but laughed when I reached for my hat. "Really?"

I glared at him. "The hat stays."

Havers shook his helmeted head. "Fine, fine. You'll need one thing first. Turn around." I cautiously turned away from him, but froze as I heard a _click_ behind me, and a sudden pressure at the back of my head. He was going to sh-

"There. A sealed enviro-suit works better when you've hooked the air hose up, you know."

Oh.

We strode back into the control room, my leather duster sweeping dramatically behind me. The two surviving humans glanced up at our entrance, and a quiet chuckle over the radio let me know that I probably looked like a complete idiot.

Screw it, I decided. It might be the future, and technology might have suddenly decided to work around me, but I was keeping the hat. "What's the plan?" I asked, trying to remember Shepard's five-second description.

"There is no plan," answered one of the soldiers sourly. "Controls are locked out and we can't reach the damn fusion torch right above us."

A idea formed deep inside my brain, bubbling out before self-preservation could point out how crazy it was. "Point me at the fusion torch."

"Sure," responded Havers. "You're not going to…" his voice trailed off as he looked at me. "Oh, shit. You _are_ going to-"

"Just point me at it," I interrupted curtly. I needed to do this quickly, before I realized how badly this could turn out.

Havers did something with the glowing thing on his arm, and a target appeared on my vision. I turned towards the three soldiers: "I'm going to be busy for two minutes or so. Don't interrupt me."

"Or what?" asked one of them.

"Or we all die." They seemed to believe it, which was good because it was probably true. My focus was fairly good – vampires don't leave you much time to get your act together – but I was trying something with a lot of power behind it. Any major distractions, and it would blow up in all our faces.

Reaching down, I dipped my fingers in some of N6's blood and used it to form a circle around my feet before willing it closed with a moment of effort. The Powers that Be might have sent me to another universe, but they hadn't given me any chalk to work with here. Ignoring my comrades, who had already started muttering doubtfully about the crazy man with the hat, I concentrated on my spell.

I emptied my mind, or tried to. Some part of me had gotten fed up, and I had to blink away tears. I just wanted to go home. I wanted to bake in the Midwest summer, get yelled at by Murphy, navigate Chicago's streets in the Blue Beetle, fight a few demons and burn down a few buildings…

I ruthlessly suppressed my emotions, using an exercise Lash had taught me. The imprint of a fallen angel might be gone from my head, but I almost felt that her _"as you wish, my host_" would ring in my ears. I shook her memory away, beginning a long, low chant and focusing power into my focus point.

My blasting rod is built for fire and wind – earth magic doesn't 'channel' well, so to speak. Still, with enough time and luck I could (hopefully) make this work. I carefully assembled the spell in my head, thankful for the circle around me that blocked magical interference. My old Warden enemy Morgan loved to use earth magic in combat, and I'd picked up a few tricks after nearly being killed by him several times. Instead of sending power out in a wave, I focused my will into a spear aimed at my target.

The soldiers wisely shut up until my chant had finished, leaving me free to extend me blasting rod and use the spell's trigger. I reached the end of my chant and stomped my foot once, feeling the power leave me in a rush.

Havers glanced at me askance. "Did that-"

A massive rumble interrupted him. We all froze, listening for any further noise. Seconds later, the complex shook and threw us around like bowling pins. I picked myself up off the floor slowly: "Yeah, I think-"

**BOOM.**

"Ummm…"

"Yeah…"

"Run?"

**BOOM.**

"Run."

"RUN!"

We ran. Retreated. Fell back to a defensible position. The soldiers did that, at least. I ran like a coward and unashamedly screamed like a little girl. We sprinted for the gap that I'd blown open in the control room previously, the armor giving me extra speed. We nearly flew across the asteroid's surface, gravity vanishing suddenly outside of the complex. I felt a sudden heat spike on my back, and turned to see the buildings behind me exploding in a series of soundless explosions, with a rocket-like structure on top brewing up in a _Challenger_-esque kaboom.

Did I mention my problem with buildings?


	3. Chapter 3: Dresden

"Ow."

That word currently summed up my entire existence. I had bruises from bullet impacts, bruises from my battle with the forces of gravity, and more bruises from the building predictably exploding before I could get far enough away to watch the fireworks. "Ow," I repeated lamely.

"That was fun! Can we do it again sometime?" Evidently our four-man band had a resident pyromaniac.

"Hell no," I responded weakly, clumsily struggling to my feet on the nearly weightless asteroid. "Are the rockets all shut down now?"

"Rockets wouldn't keep going for this long, Luddite." The radio and the featureless armor made identifying impossible, but the speaker's tone and his nickname for me marked him as Havers. He'd helped me with the armor and saved my life in the process, so I could trust him – probably. "But yeah, that's the last fusion torch. The _Ypres_ is on standby, and she can evac us as soon as…"

Havers's voice trailed off as a dark shape detached itself from the asteroid's surface, trailing a dark blue glow behind it as it went. "Missiles, contact detonation, three rounds each, go!"

The three humans quickly took a knee and grabbed blocky things – weapons – from their backs as I dropped back. Nearly in unison, the three men lined up the bulky devices and fired at the departing shape in the distance. The sound didn't travel on the atmosphere-less asteroid, but I was treated to a pretty lightshow as nine missiles arced away.

I couldn't see the missiles after a few seconds, but I could see their effects. Bright flashes lit up the rocky landscape, and a slight tremor rumbled underneath my feet. I fell on my ass, not used to the near-nonexistent gravity, while the three commandos staggered but stayed kneeling. Slowly stumbling to my feet, I found myself left behind as the three humans sprinted ahead.

Running in a near-weightless environment is…interesting. You don't so much run as _bound_ – or at least, the soldiers bounded. I jumped, crash-landed, got to my feet and repeated the process. The soldiers slowed at the top of a nearby hill to recon and to wait for me, and one was already scanning the crash site as I approached.

"Hostages. Problematic."

My gut clenched slightly at that. I'd had trouble when rescuing hostages in the past: at Bianca's mansion, or Mavra's little house of horrors…it hadn't always gone well. Generally, the scumbags who would take hostages in the first place were perfectly happy to let them die once the shooting had started. "Collateral damage" was a clean-sounding euphemism, but the truth was considerably uglier.

I shook my head to clear my thoughts, slowing my gait as I approached the soldiers. "Can we help them?"

One black-armored figure, nearly invisible against the vacuum beyond X57, peered over the small rocky ridge with a rifle scope. "Possibly. Hostages are in light enviro-suits, short-term survival only. They're being thrown out the back of the crashed ship…" his voice trailed off momentarily. "Shit. That ship's still working, and those humans' skinsuits won't last long out here."

"Screw it, we gotta move!" With those inspiring words in mind, we bounded over the ridge towards the crashed shuttle. The battered vehicle was silent in the vacuum, but occasional blue flickers from below it showed that it still had life.

We made it to within two hundred meters before they started shooting. White flickers shot by us, and two of the human soldiers responded in kind. The firefight was eerily silent, my ragged breaths the only accompaniment to the chaos. I didn't have any weapon other than my .44 and my blasting rod, and I doubted that I could hit anything on the move, anyway. One human, probably Havers, slowed to my uncertain pace, while the other two commandos sprinted ahead.

One of the soldiers bought it. The blue flicker around him flashed once and disappeared, and the armored man simply kept moving as momentum carried him over the nearly gravity-less asteroid. It was a silent death, quick and clean – it didn't make it any better, though. My gut wrenched and I felt sick to the stomach as I realized how I could've prevented it.

"On me!" I yelled, and brought my left arm up. The silver bracelet barely fit over 'my' black armor, the tiny shields on it spinning crazily in X57's vacuum. The two remaining human soldiers clustered by me, more white flickers impacting and rebounding off of my barely-visible protection. We'd halved the distance, and the shuttle loomed large on the asteroid's featureless terrain. Yelling crazily, I stepped down hard and jumped forward at my best speed. Strangled battlecries over the radio let me know I wasn't alone as we hurtled forward, my greenish bubble our only saving grace from a pair of suited figures firing weapons at us.

The two enemies collapsed as white flickers shot outward from my left and right – my two companions apparently knew how to shoot on the move. We landed heavily on the shuttle's side and somehow stuck to its surface, the silence of our sprint disappearing as a dull _rumble_ sounded under our boots. I glanced down, seeing dust shift on the asteroid's surface. "Is that supposed to happen?"

"Shit," cursed our resident pyromaniac. "The damn thing's taking off."

And indeed it was. The large craft was slowly rising, blue light arcing underneath us as the craft put distance between itself and the asteroid. Behind us, the suited hostages ducked and covered their faces from the intense light. Some, however, were clearly crying and reaching for the ship as it left – there must be more hostages on board.

I made a snap decision. "You two, go get the hostages down there. I don't know the area well, and I couldn't work life support anyway. Get them somewhere safe."

One of the human soldiers nodded, his face hidden by the black helmet. He let go of the slowly rising shuttle, letting X57's weak gravity drag him down. Havers' voice came over the radio: "The shield…your biotics…sir, what _are_ you?"

I laughed. "A wizard. Look it up." Putting the problem of the exterior hostages aside, I focused on breaking inside the shuttle. Thankfully, no one had yet closed the nearby access hatch, and getting in merely involved kicking aside the bodies that my companions had shot previously. Once inside and free of my unwanted shadows, I steadied myself on the wall and took several deep breaths. I'd been bottling up the sheer craziness of the past few days, but it had gotten out – and as it turned out, that craziness had a wicked left hook. I hadn't snapped yet, but I could see the ledge.

I turned to close the hatch, and found one of the humans behind me. "Thought I told you to take a hike," I announced with forced levity. I didn't trust the human soldiers yet, and having one at my back could be a disaster.

"Too bad," the commando responded amiably, turning to slap a glowing button on the wall. As the hatch behind us cycled shut and the soldier turned around, I body-slammed him into the wall and pointed my glowing blasting rod at his gut. All the rage and adrenaline and fear and craziness was bubbling to the surface, and I couldn't take another shock today.

"What're you doing? I said get back!" I snarled, my voice cracking.

"Easy, partner," he drawled. His voice had deepened, gaining a slight twang. "How 'bout we talk 'fore we get to fighting? Let's put the kabooms down on three."

Kabooms? Plural? I glanced down to see him with a black disc in his palm, likely some type of grenade. "Oh."

We each relaxed slowly, both of us too high-keyed to think too rationally. The black-armored soldier took off his helmet, revealing an East Asian face. The soldier grinned at my bemused look, saying simply, "I was raised in Texas. I get that a lot."

I exhaled. "Fair enough." Glancing down the darkened corridor leading into the ship, I saw nothing but flickering lights. "Here we go into the spooky spaceship with bug-eyed aliens trying to kill us. You first."

"Mah favorite type of hoedown," the soldier drawled, his accent obvious. Slipping his helmet back on, he grabbed a snub-nosed unfolding weapon from his back and walked cautiously down the passage. I followed, shield ready and blasting rod glowing. It took us less than ten yards before the welcoming committee found us.

Two of the same aliens started firing, their strange bullets deflected away as I approached with my shield up. The impacts rattled me, but compared to inhumanly powerful undead nasties, they didn't pack the same force. My shield spread the impact pressure evenly across its surface – a little trick I'd learned from Ramirez – while my pyromaniac 'friend' gunned both enemies down. "Clear! Advancing!" he yelled, his accent buried under fear and adrenaline. We both passed quickly through the small storage room, weapons up and heads on a swivel until we reached the only exit.

Pausing to consider the fight, I realized a basic mistake – I wanted to keep my head attached to my shoulders, which meant that killing with magic was a no-go. In firefights involving mortals, my .44 revolver was a good answer to the First Law of Magic, but I doubted that it would break any combat-rated armor around here. "Hey," I whispered cautiously, "got a spare weapon?"

The soldier snorted. "Thought you'd never ask," he responded amiably. He grabbed the pistol on his left hip, and handed it to me while the weapon unfolded itself in his grip. "Safety here, folding toggle here, point it at the tangos and pull the trigger and watch 'em fall down."

I rolled my eyes, invisible behind my pilfered helmet. "I can do _that_ much, thanks."

"Wasn't sure 'bout that, Luddite," he chuckled.

With my confidence slightly raised by having a still-working pistol in my gun hand, I took point and continued through the ship. Magic is great for solving life's problems, but enough firepower or high explosives offer good solutions too – and neither of those would have sword-happy Wardens dogging my footsteps. With those happy thoughts in mind, we continued to creep through the ship.

We passed by darkened rooms, the only light coming from flickering panels above and red-glowing lights on the doors. The dull roar of the ship's engines was oppressive, broken only by strange rumbling noises as something or someone broke free. I could feel my mind wandering to places I didn't want to visit anytime soon, and knew that my erstwhile companion was probably doing the same after the deaths in his team today. "Plan?" I whispered hoarsely, more to break the silence than anything else.

"I got nothing. You?" responded my shadow.

"Four eyes bad, two eyes good. Got anything past that?" I quipped.

He seemed to consider it seriously for a second. "We manfully bust onto the bridge, beat down the aliens there with our swingin' cocks, take the ship an' become kings of the Terminus."

I reviewed the plan in my head for a second, only finding one glaring flaw. "Wait, how in the hell do we bust _manfully_ onto the bridge?"

"See, you gotta-" he started, before a muted _crunch_ up ahead caught our attention.

We both quieted immediately, weapons trained on the door. The green light in front of it seemed to be a positive sign, so I approached and waved the pyromaniac to the right side of the door. He nodded, taking up the position and holding a three-finger countdown. I checked my pistol, shook my bracelet into place, and nodded back. At 'three,' he pressed the mark at the center of the door, holding his weapon high as the thick doors ground slowly open.

I raised my gun and my shield, and walked into the blizzard of fire.

Probably every surviving alien on the ship was gathered here, the armored creatures crouching behind cover and firing weapons as I stormed the room. My shield juddered under the fire, and I could feel myself being pushed backwards by the sheer volume of shots flying at me. Sweat already beading on my face, I dove for cover while blindly firing my pistol forward. Disciplined barks of fire behind me dropped enemies in front, while another Frisbee-like object flew forward to detonate next to a cluster of aliens. I breathed a sigh of relief as soon as my back touched cover, dropping my shield and reaching for my blasting rod. Although hardly the best object for the job, it could channel wind fairly well, and would be useful for my next hat trick.

Had I not been chanting and entirely focused on making my evocation spell work properly, I would've spared a silent "thank you" to the enemy soldiers for fighting smart. Zombies, ghouls, and most vampires would have rushed me by now and turned my spine into a pretzel while I was preparing. Professional soldiers, of course, were far too sensible to do such a suicidal open-ground charge. Their loss.

Not to say that the enemy was quiet. A teeth-rattling **BOOM** near me announced that they were trying to flush me out with grenades, but I ignored the attacks and continued chanting. Preparation finished, I turned the corner with blasting rod out. Blue light flickered as enemies fired at me, but the strange ray-shields and my leather duster held against the attacks. I aimed for the center of the room, and let fly. "_Ventas! Vento, ventas servitas!_" I bellowed, my voice lost in the storm that followed. Wind flew down the length of the room, passing over obstacles to catch the enemy soldiers and fling them towards the end of the room. Two more Frisbees followed them, one hitting the wall while another latched onto a surprised enemy. He yelled and attempted to run, getting two steps away before the explosives detonated.

I advanced cautiously, pistol and shield out as I approached the motionless group of bodies. A small video feed in the corner of my vision showed my pyromaniac companion's view as he ran from the doorway into the room itself, his rifle raised to cover me. Mentally nodding in approval, I nudged one of the bodies, which stirred and turned to face my darkened helmet. Four eyes glared at me from an un-helmeted alien, and his voice echoed oddly as he spoke. "Good, you're finally both inside. _F'sheru ghazi!_"

The only warning we got was a second-long high-pitched whine. I ran for cover, seeing two turrets in the back corners of the room pivoting to face my 'friend.' I fired at one non-stop, but was too late to stop it from firing. The two weapons fired downwards, and the feed in the corner of my vision faded to static as the Asian Texan collapsed. I snarled and kept shooting, my shots destroying one of the turrets while the other smoothly turned to face me. Ducking behind cover as white-hot shots_whizzed_ by, I shook out my shield-

"Rrraaaaahhh!" Hands gripped me from behind, making me drop my blasting rod – Nostrils, the un-helmeted alien who'd activated the turrets, was on his feet again. I struggled as he reached for my gun hand, trying to elbow him while the turret merrily blazed away. Alarms hooted and red lights flared as the turret's shells burned through my apparently-vital cover, but my attention was riveted on the limpet on my back. I twisted and tried to yank him off me, but my enemy was a professional soldier and clearly used to fighting humans. A sudden impact against my helmet dazed me, while he performed a strange thumb-lock to rip my weapon away. I swung a wild haymaker, gratified to see Nostrils stagger under the impact. His back was hit several times by the wild turret fire, causing a blue corona to flare around him as his strange shields disappeared.

"_Halt!_" he yelled, which I responded to with another punch. Some rational part of my mind realized that the alien must have been stopping the turret, because the constant **thump** of fire stopped. I tried to twist away, but the alien kicked the side of my helmet and sent me sprawling. Dazed, I wasn't able to stop him from grabbing my pistol and aiming the weapon at me.

The alarms continued blaring, unabated, while Nostrils seemed lost in thought. "Ship," he growled, "eezo status of my target?"

"One source, presumably armor," echoed an impersonal electronic voice. "Good," snarled the enemy angrily. "An unarmed N6 operative, here for me to capture. The interrogators will _love_ having you around."

Stock-still, I tried to figure out a plan, but couldn't see one. Nostrils kept talking: "The mission's a damn bust, but getting you alive back to Hegemony space might help." He growled slowly. "I'll enjoy seeing the propaganda vids they make out of you."

I glanced to the side, for once glad of the face-concealing helmet. The human soldier was on the ground, but seemed to be stirring feebly. Nostrils, though, looked ready to leave the dying ship – I needed to keep him busy. "Tell me," I drawled, "d'ya really think you'll get a free pass after getting all your men killed and failing the mission to boot?"

The alien pivoted and fired, a shot scarring the deck near my head. "Screw you! Whether you die here or at Khar'shan, I'll live while you're _dead_!" Happy to find a weak point, I kept pressing the issue.

"Keep up your fantasies, four-eyes," I chuckled with forced humor, watching the human soldier out of the corner of my eyes. He reached for Nostrils, but his hands were empty – the turret had shot his back, and smoke arced lazily up from where his weapons were stored. I kept watching, mystified. What could he-

The soldier's arm lit up with orange light, and a lightning bolt arced from his…thing…to hit Nostrils squarely. My pistol shuddered in the alien's hand, vents spewing smoke from the sides, while Nostrils himself staggered and bellowed in pain. I pulled my hand from my pocket, sighting my old .44 on the alien's face. It had just gone through vacuum and might not work, but at this point I was out of options. Muttering a second-long prayer, I pulled the trigger. The scarred revolver spoke twice, the _crack_ of each shot almost quiet next to the noise of the previous firefight. Two holes appearing in his head, the alien collapsed in a heap next to me.

I was on my feet within seconds, wincing with pain at each movement. The remaining turret in the corner _whirred_ to face me, but didn't fire; apparently Nostrils' override still worked. I hobbled over to the Asian Texan, barely keeping my stomach down at the sight.

The human soldier had nearly been sawn in two by the impacts. I could see through his body where his lower back used to be, blood pooling across the floor while a light blue gel dribbled down his torso and stopped some of the bleeding. Seeing me approach, the Asian Texan slowly reached down to his helmet and unlatched it, letting it roll slowly away. His face was chalk-white, and his breath came in shallow gasps.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit," I muttered, panicking as I tried to help. I reached for a bandage, looking around for anything Red Cross-shaped nearby. "Just hang on, OK? We'll get you fixed up and-"

"Hey," the soldier muttered. "Don't worry, man."

"Worry?" I snapped. "You're in a little trouble right now, damnit! I'm going to-"

"Ain't happening," gasped the dying man. "The medi-gel'll keep me going for a bit, but no one around here can fix anything this bad."

I slowed down, realizing the futility of saving him. "Anything I can do?" I asked quietly, kneeling by the soldier.

"Nah, just clear the damn four-eyes out and get the hostages free," he responded quietly. His eyes rolled back and he shuddered as pain wracked his body.

"I've got family on Terra Nova down there," he said. "Doin' this…that's enough for me." He reached for the orange-glowing thing with his right hand, popping something free and handing it to me. "You don't have long. Take this, get everyone free, and get the hell outta here."

I froze, hesitating. "Now!" he croaked weakly.

The klaxon kept sounding distantly as I rushed through the ship, pistol out and looking for openings. I couldn't see anything moving, and the doors nearby were sealed with red lights glowing. I was lost, confused, and running out of time.

"Left up ahead," a familiar voice croaked over the alarm noises. "Six human life signs in there." I dashed into the room, slapping a door button and seeing six handcuffed prisoners on the other side. "Move, the cavalry's here!" I yelled, ushering the humans towards the door and ignoring their harried questions.

We ran. An impersonal voice echoed over the loudspeaker: "Atmospheric decompression. All personnel, evacuate immediately. Atmospheric decompression…" The voice kept droning on, a few directions from the dying soldier keeping us on the right path. We sprinted past locked doors and empty rooms, reaching a small corridor with red stripes over small hatches. "Escape pods," gasped a former prisoner, hands still cuffed behind his back.

"In here!" I yelled, hitting a nearby button and hoping that the controls were idiot-proof. The hatched cycled open without even a groan of protest, and I began bodily throwing the prisoners inside. I'd gotten five through before all hell broke loose.

"At-atmospheric decompress. Ess. –shun occur. Ring. A-all p-person-sonell evac-c-cuate," stuttered the nearby loudspeaker, cracked and sparking from the crash. I could feel the rumble in my boots, and knew I was out of time. The air was rushing by me as something, somewhere broke loose, and I stuffed the last human inside before trying to follow him into the pod.

"Atmospheric pressure decreasing, failsafes engaged," droned an electronic voice from inside the pod. Heedless of my attempts to get in, the hatch began to slowly cycle closed. "Damnit!" I yelled, before remembering the chip in my pocket. Hastily grabbing it and shoving it through the opening, I squeezed my arm back through the narrow gap and let the escape pod close. The rushing air yanked my body around, and I held onto a nearby railing to compensate.

As the hallway quieted in the stillness of vacuum, a quavering voice spoke up in my helmet's radio. "Hey. Head down another fifty feet and turn right. There's a cockroach – sorry, a Kodiak – parked over there, and that can get you out of here."

"Why not another escape pod?" I asked, turning to follow the directions regardless.

"You ain't from around here," drawled the dying man's voice, wheezing with laughter. "The Alliance, they'll hold you, question you, and you don't deserve that after what you've done here."

I said nothing, simply jogging through the vacuum inside the ship and hunting for the shuttle. Another turn, another door, and I found myself looking over a tiny white-shelled craft.

"That's the one," croaked the voice. "Go skedaddle on out of here, before the _Ypres_ gets too close." A choking cough echoed over the radio, and I winced in sympathy.

"Hey, what's your name?" I whispered, fighting the words past the lump in my throat.

"Sam," whispered the soldier. "Been an honor, sir."

"Good luck," I replied softly, blinking the tears back. I stepped into the shuttle, barked at the computer until it started flying, and wrapped my arms around myself until the shuddering stopped.

* * *

><p>I don't know how long I spent there. My exhaustion, both mental and physical, finally caught up with me and beat some sense into my tired skull. I found myself curled up, still in armor, on the shuttle's bare floor. The computer was blinking new messages at me, and I slowly navigated my way through the unfamiliar interface.<p>

Blinking messages caught my eye, one standing out in particular. Looking for something to distract me from X57, I opened one at random. Instantly, the computer's screen expanded to show a news network across the side of the shuttle: "The colony of Terra Nova has been saved from a batarian terrorist attack, thanks to the heroic efforts of the System Alliance's N operatives. Despite terrible odds, these soldiers drove into the heart of-"

The screen was showing images from the assault. I flicked it off, disgusted, but another message kept stubbornly blinking. I opened it, and groaned in despair at the sight:

"The mission's success is largely due to the efforts of undercover N6 agent Harry Dresden. Although his name does not appear on Alliance records, and although the Alliance continues to deny his existence, we have irrefutable video proof of the elusive biotic's work."

The screen shifted to video footage from Sam the Texan's helmet, probably from that same chip he gave me. I watched, dumbfounded, as the chip showed me throwing the bug-eyed aliens – batarians – around on the unnamed ship.

I closed my eyes, leaning back and exhaling slowly. "Hell's bells."

"Please state a destination," droned the tiny ship's computer, interrupting my reverie. I considered roasting it for a second, before realizing that its tiny electronic brain probably handled important little things like the engines and life support. "Earth," I muttered, hoping that it could magic me there somehow. I had some unfinished business to deal with, an archangel to punch out, and a Council to plead with on the third rock from the Sun.


	4. Chapter 4: Shepard

Lieutenant Shepard awoke to gunfire and a headache.

The N operative groaned and stirred feebly, a **thock** heralding a nearby bullet as it buried itself in wood. Military training and survival instinct spearheaded the Marine's time-honored "don't get shot" routine, as he rolled onto his belly and rose to a crouch. A **thud** announced a second bullet, deflected away by Shepard's slowly recharging kinetic barriers. Adrenaline already pumping, the lieutenant broke into a sprint down the…dock? _Looks like it._

Seeing the blue flash and hearing the quiet _beep_ of full k-bars, Shepard raced along the wooden platform without stopping to take cover. His ceramic boots pounded the old wharf, splinters flying as the armored man ran towards the shore. Three **thuds** sounded in his head, the Marine flinching but keeping his stride as more bullets pounded his k-bars but barely depleted them. Shepard's breath raced in his throat, his heart pounding while combat stims flooded his system. Another **thud**, and the operative began watching the shoreline as he ran for the telltale flash of the shooter. The Marine's mind raced, trying to fit his surroundings to anything familiar, until he consciously suppressed the thoughts and shelved them for later.

A **thud**, this time accompanied by a slight flash on the side of a small building nearby. _In range – go!_ Shepard spread his arms, the mimetic motion triggering nodes of dark energy scattered throughout his body. In an instant, John Shepard phased through space-time, a bullet passing harmlessly through his transparent body. Now 'disconnected,' the operative brought his hands forward in his best Superman impersonation; the motion triggered different neural pathways and sent electricity arcing into the element zero in his body. A corona of purple light surrounded the lieutenant, arcing behind him as the soldier shot forward like one of his eezo-powered bullets.

A purple fireball streaked across the water from the wharf, arcing towards the squat cinderblock building overlooking the parked boats. A hooded, panicked figure desperately scrambled away as Shepard phased into realtime just short of the wall. The impact shredded cinderblocks, the building collapsing as the Marine hunted for the shooter. The N operative turned the corner, seeing his attacker, and raised his pistol to-

-have it smacked away by a mottled arm, another impact sending the Marine staggering. Knocked forward, Shepard continued the motion and dove into a clumsy roll. His left hand reaching out to stop himself, Shepard's right hand was already ducking towards the cylinder mag-locked to the small of his back. Pivoting out of his crouch, the lieutenant brought his shotgun to bear.

He was almost fast enough.

Another shape, momentum carrying it on an 8-foot leap, hit the operative and sent him sprawling again. His head hurting but his vision clear, Shepard got his first full look at his opponents. Looking back on the event later, Shepard's only clear memory would be of one irreverent thought: _Looks like the crazy wizard wasn't so crazy._ Two _things_ bounded towards the toppled Marine, jaws almost unhinged and drool flying freely from their mouths. Their skin was ragged and uneven, bunched and stretched like ill-fitting suits, while their fingers and toes were lengthened into stained claws clearly made for rending flesh. Eyes full of hunger and madness glared at the prone operative, one of the creatures making a constant keening growl as it approached. Shepard had never seen anything like these monsters in his life, but something deep in his brain recognized the threat. Human instinct spoke in the Marine's mind with the weight of history behind it:

**Enemy. Kill.** His shotgun readied, John Shepard obliged.

The first ghoul received almost twenty 'bullets,' moving at near-relativistic speeds. Each 'bullet' was the size of a grain of sand, but their eezo-enhanced speed made them extremely dangerous. Almost half of the grains shot through the ghoul's nonexistent barriers and armor to strike flesh, impacting nothing lethal and leaving moderate damage behind. Three particles found the ghoul's legs. One found its head.

The first ghoul dropped as its lower jaw disintegrated, but the N operative was already swinging to the next target. Another pull of the trigger, another muted **boom**, and Shepard scanned the area for more targets. The two _things_ were dead, but the sniper had run. The Marine momentarily considered pursuing, before common sense reminded him that he was alone, on an unknown planet, chasing after an unknown target with unknown weapons, and did he remember the unknown monsters trying to eat his face off?

Shepard instead picked up his weapons and turned back towards the dock he'd woken up on, jogging to the boat he'd first seen. It was a ramshackle wooden affair with _Water Beetle_ stenciled on the side, held together more with wishful thinking than with nails, but the body next to this blue-water-ship was entirely real. Harry Dresden, the man he'd seen for mere minutes in…wherever 'that place' was, lay dead in the water. Blood poured from several gaping chest wounds, a violet spot of color against the dark waves. Putting the new casualty in the same dark corner that he'd shoved Akuze and Mindoir into, Shepard dispassionately analyzed the situation.

_Dresden was in non-combat gear, likely left the boat next to him, was shot by the sniper… don't make too many assumptions, damnit!_ Shepard walked into the boat bobbing by the corpse, the gentle waves already spreading Dresden's blood underneath the keel. Putting the image out of his mind, the N operative quickly perused the room, finding nothing except civilian clothes and a wooden staff leaning in the corner.

A strange siren, like the ones from the old 'vids, began to howl from the shore. Even as Shepard stiffened and turned to face the noise, several more joined it. Looking for options and relieved that Dresden's clothing styles were still recognizable, the lieutenant quickly seized a backpack and threw several sets of clothes into it before awkwardly fitting it over the weapons on his back. Grabbing the staff in the corner and dashing outside, John Shepard jumped unhesitatingly into the water and dove deep. Compared to deep space conditions, the frigid waters of Lake Michigan were positively vacation-worthy, and the operative's suit worked easily while he swam. Balancing himself with judicious suit-eezo and biotic use, Shepard tried to calm his spinning head and get his bearings again.

He was in Chicago, sometime pre-spaceflight. Magic – his brain locked up at the word – _something_ strange and dangerous existed in this universe, and apparently thought that manflesh tasted like chicken. It seemed like something from the Brothers Grimm, a fairytale made up to scare a gullible populace.

Yet no matter how much he doubted the story, no matter how much he rationalized the previous attackers as the work of a nasty pathogen or simply bad nutrition, Shepard's mind kept returning to the crystal-clear images of Harry Dresden's soul…for that was the only word to describe it. He'd seen enough there to convince any sane man, even though John Shepard knew he barely qualified as one anymore.

Dispelling his thoughts and reflexively checking his HUD for markers, Shepard decided to check his bearings. Slowing his breaststroke and rising close to the surface, Shepard extended one gauntlet above the water. The fiber optic-linked camera on the back of his wrist panned around, seeing unmarked shore to the south and white-blue groundcars – _police_ – to the north. Although SOP said to hide the camera as soon as possible, the lieutenant found himself staring in disbelief at the cops sprinting towards the docks from their groundcars. Not for the first time, Shepard pinched himself to see if he was dreaming.

After a reflexive check over his nonfunctioning nav system, the lieutenant lowered his arm and began to swim for shore. Although he was out of combat, Shepard still found himself struggling to calm his body amid combat stims and sheer adrenaline. He was keyed up on a combat high without any enemies to fight, and the lieutenant found himself alternately shivering or sweating as he swam through the murky water.

Stepping out onto a deserted beach after another handcam sweep, the lieutenant quickly dropped the bag of clothes and dragged out its contents. Cracking his helmet seals after another omni-check of the local atmosphere, Shepard quickly donned a purloined robe that covered his armor and put the strangely old-fashioned sunglasses over his eyes. Not seeing a way to hide the staff, the Marine buried it in the sand and gave it a nav marker for later. Silently wishing that he had his gear from the _Ypres_, including his ridiculously expensive Ray-Ban hologlasses, the N operative stowed his helmet, awkwardly hid his gear, and strode off towards the city.

No matter how much he tried to hide it, John Shepard was wearing a purple bathrobe and 22nd century combat armor. The lieutenant realized that he would have stood out in a crowd even had he been walking next to a mask-wearing Michael Myers with a bloody kitchen knife, before chiding himself for thinking such morbid thoughts. He might be out of a combat zone for now, but the strange creatures that had awoken such a strong fight-or-flight response could be anywhere, and getting distracted – especially without a helmet on – could be deadly. His eyes constantly on the move, Shepard scanned his surroundings and unsuccessfully tried to suppress his innate sense of wonder at the strange world around him.

Cars burning fossil fuels – outside of a museum! Helicopters, without a trace of eezo on them! Skies clear of aircars, people using strange plas-phones – _cell phones_, he silently reminded himself – and not an omnitool in sight. Trying to blend in, the N operative lit up his omni for a quick Net search-

-and doused it, mentally kicking himself for the lapse. An omnitool check was the oldest trick in the book for blending into a crowd of people, many of whom would have their own omnis out – _when omnitools even exist, dumbass!_ Shepard looked around surreptitiously, seeing staring faces and wide eyes, before moving towards the nearest cross street. His "sixth sense" of situational awareness twitched, and the lieutenant cringed internally as an authoritative voice spoke behind him: "Sir, could you answer a few questions, please?"

His trained mind already running through plans, the N operative turned slowly to see an officer dressed like he was from the set of _Cairo Blue_. Ignoring the anachronisms around him, Shepard quickly categorized the policeman's weapons and attitude, subconsciously looking for escape routes even as he tried to respond to the grim-faced cop.

"Sir, I'd like to see some I.D." The officer seemed conscientious of the local protocol, Shepard noticed, especially considering that one nearby passerby had already pointed his phone at the two men. Wondering how he'd avoid a confrontation, Shepard coughed slightly and slid into N subterfuge training. "Sorry, officer, I locked myself out of my car at the docks and I'm walking home."

The cop seemed nonplussed. "Which docks? And what's your name?"

Shepard paused, trying to relax and jog his memory. "John…Cook. I'm time-sharing the _Water Beetle_, down at the…South Beach harbor."

The officer nodded slowly, clearly disbelieving. "Uh-huh. You went down to your boat and locked yourself out of your car, so why are you wearing a bathrobe?"

Shepard could almost hear Nikolai, N Operations' head infiltration teacher, whispering in his ear again. The N operative felt a faint surge of hope, before reminding himself that he'd spectacularly failed that course. "I spent the night on my boat, and my clothes got soaked. They're drying and I'm going home to get my spare key."

The cop nodded again, still obviously doubting. "So where's your home? And how about the orange glow on your arm?" He reached out for Shepard's left hand, still encased in Alliance standard ceramic and carbon fiber weave. The Marine's combat instincts reacted to the perceived attack: Shepard pivoted to the left and struck the cop's neck with a right-hand chop. Struck by over two hundred pounds of trained, gene-boosted, and armored operative, the cop fell to the ground instantly. _Shit! Move!_

Ignoring the gasps and panicked screams around him, the operative turned tail and ran. A sharp _crack_ announced a bullet impacting the lieutenant's shields, but Shepard didn't break stride as the lead slug bounced harmlessly off of the lieutenant's k-bars.

Two more _crack_s echoed in Shepard's uncovered ears, but the Marine continued sprinting towards a side alleyway. The lieutenant dashed down the brick passage, scattering trash and splashing in puddles as he ran. A hobo stood up to see the commotion, and the Marine responded with a brutal sidearm, knocking the other man into the brick wall headfirst without breaking stride.

Quickly clearing the alleyway, the Marine ran to another alley across the next street and found himself alone for a moment. Slowing his breath to rid himself of his combat high, Shepard cursed his combat reflexes and pondered what to do next. He could run, but his clothes and armor would instantly mark him as a target. He could hide, but pre-Discovery Chicago was a mystery to the Marine, and his unfamiliarity would betray him. Frozen in indecision as another siren wailed nearby, the N operative found himself out of options.

"Hey, man. Got a light?" The voice was unfamiliar, and Shepard turned with his pistol already out. The other man, hunched in the corner, quickly raised his arms at the sight of the weapon. "Whoah, whoah. Don't wanna make any trouble, man."

Weighing his options, the lieutenant quickly strode to the other man in the corner of the cramped courtyard. Ignoring his protests, the lieutenant quickly rendered him unconscious with a single pistol-whip, before grabbing the man's patched-together jacket and threadbare pants. Awkwardly fitting them over his body armor and discarding the bathrobe onto the unconscious man, Shepard quickly tried to relax into his new disguise. Fitting together the pieces of his fake identity, John Charles, homeless Chicago panhandler and occasional red sand – _no, marijuana_ – dealer exited the courtyard and walked onto another street – _slower, my left leg was injured back in 1995_.

His new identity slowly falling into place, John Charles surveyed his surroundings with the tired eyes of a street veteran. Avoiding the pigs running into the nearby alleyway with their guns out, John kept his head down and hobbled towards a nearby roundabout. Ignoring glares from nearby homeless men angry with the newcomer infringing on their turf, John Charles struck jackpot in the form of a city map. After a surreptitious check for anyone nearby, the N operative quickly activated his omni in low-light form and took several snapshots. The transparent pictures hovered several inches above John Charles's left arm, barely visible if an onlooker knew where to look, but people's eyes slid off of the homeless vagrant as he limped slowly through Chicago's streets.

Shepard, still wearing the 'Charles' disguise, eyed the city around him with different eyes. He couldn't make such elementary mistakes again – _this_ was home, at least until Someone up above changed their mind. His mind wandering after another fifteen minutes of 'aimlessly' walking through Chicago's streets, Shepard quickly snapped his thoughts back to his mission. Suppressing his worries with practiced ease, 'John Charles' slowly hobbled towards the front gates of St. Mary's Cathedral.

The cathedral was an imposing edifice, but John Shepard ignored it as he shed his fake identity at the gates and strode in. He'd left religion behind on Mindoir, along with family and home and damn near everything else, so the lieutenant felt nothing as he walked into the middle of an evening service.

As he completed his near-subconscious perimeter check, Shepard settled his eyes on the approaching usher. "I'm sorry, the soup kitchens are only open on Wed-" The usher's rehearsed speech was quickly cut off as Shepard stared the other man down and spoke up: "Father Forthill. Now."

"But he's in the middle of a serv-"

"Forthill. Now."

Something in Shepard's tone or eyes convinced the other man, because the usher quickly left the Marine to his own devices and hurried off. Settling into a corner, the N operative slowly relaxed into his well-practiced "wait and see" stance, watching silently as worshippers left or filed in quietly. Holding himself almost perfectly still, Shepard unsuccessfully tried to keep his mind from wandering back to the mental roads he didn't dare tread on – _Terra Nova, the damn _Ypres_, holy shit I __died__-_

"Can I help you?" A quiet voice interrupted the lieutenant's uncomfortable reverie. Quickly standing and facing the newcomer, Shepard asked, "Forthill?" At the man's answering nod, the N operative studied the other man. He was short and balding, with spectacles over his eyes and a skullcap on his head. Obviously several decades past his prime, the priest was no physical threat without a good weapon. Seeing none, the lieutenant relaxed his guard slightly and stated, "John Shepard. Friend of Dresden?"

The portly priest nodded gravely. "I suppose so. Are you?"

Shepard pondered the question for a second. "Guess so. Dresden died."

The priest stared at the soldier in astonishment and mute disbelief for a second before bowing his head. His posture collapsed before he regained control of himself, but his eyes remained downcast and his voice was slightly choked. "I'm…I'm sorry to hear that. He was a good man." Forthill straightened slightly, clearing his throat and mutely trying to speak before asking, "My son, may I ask your name?"

The operative remained uncomfortably still, his mind racing and his body tense. "John Shepard." He paused for a second, before adding, "I'm…not from around here. 2183."

The priest looked at the soldier in shock. "You don't mean…?" his voice trailed off as he looked into the operative's eyes. He cleared his throat again. "Let's discuss this in private." Shepard followed the balding man through a side door into a small room filled with vestments and robes, where Forthill was rummaging through a drawer. "One moment," the priest announced, drawing a bottle of amber liquid and two shot glasses from a drawer.

The priest gestured to a small table nearby, and Shepard awkwardly seated himself there, dropping his gear by his side and pulling off his tattered, stolen jacket. Forthill paused at the sight of the soldier's futuristic body armor, but simply shook his head and poured the alcohol. His innate paranoia triggering at the sight of the alcohol, Shepard nevertheless grabbed one of the glasses and roughly downed the shot in one gulp. He'd quickly picked up drinking after stowing aboard an Alliance ship, and the Marine still relied on it to solve the problems he couldn't shoot.

Relaxing slightly as the familiar taste of whiskey burned down his throat, the lieutenant shivered uncontrollably in his chair as his emotions overwhelmed him. Feeling a hand on his shoulder, the lieutenant looked up to see the priest looking at him with sympathy. Without asking, Forthill refilled the shot glass and handed it back to Shepard, who downed it again and carefully placed it on the table with shaking hands. A traitorous thought reminded the Marine that the priest looked a lot like Dad, before Shepard brutally squashed the thought and downed more whiskey. Putting away the alcohol, Forthill returned to his own glass of whiskey while Shepard slowly regained control of himself.

Seeing the soldier's face, the priest wisely said nothing about the short breakdown. "My son, may I ask how this happened?" Forthill listened as Shepard slowly poured out the story of his arrival on 20th-century Earth, listening intently as the operative explained in as few words as possible. The old priest remained silent through Shepard's story, but sat up when the operative described what he'd seen on the other side.

As the Marine finished with an uncertain "Then…I came here," Forthill leaned forward with a sigh and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Shepard, I'm not sure of what I can do. You're lost, you're alone, and you've got a tough path to walk. I'll call…people, friends. They might be able to send you home, although-"

"Don't want to go," Shepard interrupted roughly. He hadn't taken enough whiskey to make him drunk, but it'd loosened his tongue. "Empty bunks, empty barracks, empty 'partment. Can't deal with that. Not anymore. Just give me some enemies, padre. I can deal with that."

Forthill shook his head slowly. "I can't help you with what you need, my son, but I can certainly find what you want." He laughed ruefully. "God knows, even with the Red Court gone there's enough enemies to go around."

Shepard quickly stood up, unshipping his pistol and starting to strip it down with the ease born from years of experience. "Need intel, backup. Ally-enemy assets, locations, transportation, infil-exfil routes. Can you help, padre?"

With a single nod, the portly priest went to the door and picked up a rotary telephone. As Forthill talked softly to an unknown listener, Shepard cleared his mind and focused on his new mission. His mind whirling with strategies and possibilities, Shepard casually inspected his pistol's heat vanes and rebooted the electronics. As he gave a quick biotic pulse to check the weapon's eezo core, the lieutenant realized that he'd managed to avoid thinking about everything else for a full minute. _Thank God._

* * *

><p>"New guy, huh?"<p>

The N operative's gaze spun towards the unfamiliar voice, his left arm swinging out in a biotic Throw as he did. The newcomer ducked the violet pulse of dark enemy, a gun appearing in her hand as if by magic while the Throw exhausted itself against the nearby stone wall. Cursing himself for his idiocy – _what were you __thinking__, sitting with your back to the door?_ – Shepard forced himself to relax and keep his itching hands away from their guns. Safe behind active k-bars, Shepard gazed steadily at the newcomer down the iron sights of her weapon.

The newcomer was a short blond woman, her hair tied back in a ponytail and her eyes sunken and shadowed. She wore an archaic tactical vest, the webbing festooned with weapon clips and the paraphernalia of war. Her hands kept a boxy slug-thrower pointed rock-steady at the Marine's head, wisely aimed at the only unarmored portion of Shepard's body. Considering her instincts to aim rather than to fire a burst following Shepard's attack, and remembering that Earth had been fairly peaceful about now, the N operative mentally classified his backup as a cop.

"Lieutenant John Shepard, Systems Alliance N Operations," he stated calmly. The cop seemed to believe him, but to her credit the slug-thrower stayed locked on his head.

"Riiight," the cop drawled back. "Last time I heard, the US Army didn't call itself the Alliance, and they weren't out looking for wizards to fill the ranks."

"Wizard?"

The cop snorted. "Yeah, wizards. They like to throw around fireballs and big purple death rays. Say, like the one you just chucked at me?"

Shepard locked eyes with the cop. "Wizard? Dresden?"

The woman gazed back at him with clear intent. "_What_?" Recognizing a fellow survivor, the Marine dropped his gaze slightly. "Sorry," he muttered incoherently.

"Where is he?" Shepard said nothing in response.

"Damnit, whoever you are, _say something_! Where is he?"

"Dead," the operative responded succinctly. His eyes were locked onto the floor, but a choked gasp let him know the cop's reaction. "Sorry."

"I…damnit. Damnit!" Looking up, the Marine watched the cop drop her own head. Lost and confused in the emotional minefield, Shepard looked for his usual 'out.'

"Need backup, infiltration into hostile territory. Going to the docks again. Checking out Dresden's murder site."

The woman nodded, steadying herself. "Right." She straightened up, her tone becoming businesslike. "I'm Karren Murphy, retired from the Chicago Police Department." Her lips twisted at the word "retired." Shepard nodded mutely.

"Karren" waited for a response, and cleared her throat when Shepard remained silent. "Okay, then, Homicide will have fished the body out by now. Let's get ourselves tidied up, and head over there to see what we can find. Let me make a few calls first." The woman – _Murphy_ – turned back momentarily. "Oh, and Shepard? My town, my rules. You break the law and I break you."

The N operative, armed with biotics and technology two centuries ahead of its time, considering snorting in disbelief at the woman's words. A quick glance dissuaded him of that notion; the woman might be small and under-armed, but she had a gaze that could cut steel and the mind to match it. Almost unbidden, the Marine's mind went back to a single turian insurgent on New Canton who'd led the Alliance company sent to capture him on a merry chase for three weeks. Six Marines had gone down when they'd underestimated the power of a thinking creature with a pointy stick.

With that fresh in mind, the Marine quickly gathered his gear before donning the drab clothing that Forthill had provided. A mental once-over brought John Baker, docks worker and occasional muscle-for-hire to the fore of his mind. The stolid, unimaginative man turned to follow his employer, who'd beckoned him to the door. His weapons stowed in a battered backpack and his armor hidden under the oil-stained clothing, the operative settled into the taxi and prepared for either a long wait or a short firefight. _Or both. That'd do just fine, too._

* * *

><p>The taxi rumbled to a stop outside the dilapidated docks, the weathered boats bobbing on the gentle waves. Murphy, followed closely by "John Baker," clambered out of the car and strode towards the police cordon. His eyes dully looking forward but his mind cautiously scanning his surroundings with his peripheral vision, the operative watched as he and the cop approached the yellow tape surrounding the area.<p>

Several officers, uniformed like the vids had showed, lounged around the taped-off area. Small signs were posted at the squat building where Shepard had faced down the two ghouls, and on the docks where Dresden had died. Several plainclothed detectives were puttering around the cinderblock structure where the ghouls had perished, while the docks remained thankfully clear.

The operative turned his attention back to his partner to see her throw her hands up in exasperation. "Damnit, Rodriguez, I _knew_ Dresden! Let me at least see what happened to him!"

The other cop, a bulky dark-skinned man, responded curtly, "I'm sorry, Murph. You were just in a real shit-storm, and if I let you through here then I'm out on my half-pay just like you."

Shepard, thinking quickly, prodded Murphy until she turned around with an exasperated, "_What_, damnit?" The Marine hooked his thumb backwards. "This way." The 'retired' cop and "John Baker" left the cordon behind, going into a side alley where the operative unshipped his backpack. "I can get there," he announced, donning his helmet and reaching behind his neck for his hardsuit's air hose.

"The boat?" asked Murphy. "Forget it. You don't know what to look for."

Shepard shrugged. "Bullet holes, bloodstains."

The cop snorted. "Exactly my point. That's not enough to tell us who, why, or how – you've never even investigated a crime scene before, have you?" The Marine shrugged in response, saying simply, "Better than nothing."

Murphy sighed. "Look, much as I'd like to find this bastard, we can't do much here. I can make some calls and find out whatever Homicide's picked up, but for now we need to wait for someone who can sense anything that went wrong."

Another voice interrupted them: "Hey, Karren, I-behind you! _Lumos!_"

**BOOM! **Shepard found himself stumbling blindly from the flashbang that'd just gone off next to him. The Marine crouched and spun up his strongest Barrier, holding the shield against the expected bullets to follow.

None came. The ringing in his ears dissipating and the lightshow vanishing from his closed eyelids, the operative cracked his eyes slightly and quickly swung his pistol towards the nearest shape he could see. Expecting a thug with a gun, the purple-glowing Marine was fairly surprised to see a young woman pointing a chipped drumstick at him. His vision clearing as the flashbang's effect dissipated, the Marine surveyed his target. She wore black combat boots, dark fatigues, and was set into a basic combat stance. Her left hand held a strange glowing bracelet while the drumstick in her right crackled with strange energy.

The Marine found his voice again: "Umm…hello?"

Two hands slowly reached out and pushed both the heavy pistol and the glowing drumstick down. "Easy, everyone. We're all on the same side here." Murphy glanced over at the newcomer with a wry grin. "Also, Molly, can you knock off the magic around us? I don't want to replace my cell phone again this month."

Straightening from his crouch and holstering his pistol, Shepard again found himself under attack. A massive weight impacted between his shoulder blades, the operative barely breaking his fall before he impacted the concrete alley. Quickly turning over, the Marine found himself under attack by a massive furry varren with a slobbering tongue.

Both of the women giggled at the sight, although "Molly" managed to choke out, "Mouse! Down, boy!" Trying to control her laughter, the young woman grabbed the creature's collar and tried to haul it from the downed Marine. His low-light filters kicking in, Shepard finally recognized the frantically-happy dog on top of him. The Marine gently pushed the massive creature off and unsuccessfully tried to wipe the dog spit from his helmet, before giving it up as a lost cause.

Murphy giggled hysterically at the sight of the hulking, armored Marine dripping saliva from his helmet. Holding her stomach, the cop wheezed, "OK, I think we all needed that." Despite the dog's tongue-lolling grin and affectionate thumping of Shepard's legs, the three humans quickly sobered up at Murphy's words. Shepard removed his helmet with a muted _hiss_ of escaping air before asking "Plan?"

The young woman – _Molly_ – seemed worried. "Don't ask me, I just got back," she announced uncertainly. "I came here straight from the airport, after…" She trailed off uncertainly, looking to the older woman for guidance.

Shelving his questions for later, the N operative turned to Murphy. "She the sensitive?" The cop had seemed emphatic about waiting for someone able to "sense" something, and the images from Dresden's mind still dancing in Shepard's head told him that he was in over his head here.

"'She' is standing right here, y'know," Molly drawled. "But yeah, I might be able to pick something up. Is this the place where…?" Murphy nodded once in response.

Even in the dim light, Shepard could see unshed tears glimmering in Molly's eyes. Unsure of what to do, the operative scanned his surroundings and set his omnitool to a perimeter sweep. The Marine lost himself in routine so effectively that he was startled by Murphy tapping him on the arm. "Molly's about to get to work. Are you ready?"

The Marine nodded once, settling his helmet on and unshipping his shotgun. Most Alliance soldiers kept the reliable Avenger assault rifle as their main armament, but Shepard used his trusted Armax Avalanche shotgun whenever he could get away with it. The turian-made weapon, at Shepard's usual settings, would break an un-augmented human's arm.

Setting the gun's firepower to "krogan," the Marine silently thanked Dr. Nguyen of the _Hastings_ for giving Alliance-standard augments to an angry fifteen-year-old Mindoir hick. Shaking his head to dispel the memories and checking his omni, (in low-light mode – he'd learned his lesson) the N operative walked through the alley to where Molly and Murphy had set up…something. The young spellcaster sat cross-legged in the middle of a chalk circle, her eyes closed and her hands holding a small silver necklace with an equally small crystal dangling below. Molly was chanting softly, Murphy covering her with the slug-thrower out.

The big dog, Mouse, stood waiting by her side but cast the Marine a tooth-filled doggy grin at the sight of Shepard. With a last-minute weapons check, Shepard took up position behind Murphy to leave both ends of the alley covered. The dog and the two humans waited in an uncomfortable silence, eyes up and weapons steady. Shepard and Murphy almost unconsciously quieted their breathing, leaving the alleyway almost silent except for Mouse's panting and Molly's constant chant.

Saying four unknown words, Molly finished her chant and scratched a hole in the side of the chalk circle. _Something_ rushed out, and the Marine stumbled as it rushed by him. His omnitool beeped incoherently, lights flaring at random, while his treasured Avalanche shuddered in his hands. The Marine immediately dropped the shotgun to the side, the weapon's electronic brain on the fritz and useless to him, while his hand reached for his knife. The six-inch 'Varren Fang,' sharp enough to rend steel, dully reflected the streetlamps' light and the fading rays of the sun as Shepard held it in guard position. Silence from behind him let the Marine know that his partner hadn't suffered the same problem, and he mentally resolved to find out about this "magic" thing ASAP.

Molly gasped. "The pain…I…holy _shit!_" She winced in pain, desperately gasping for air like she'd been gut-punched, while a strange warbling cry broke the twilight stillness. Shepard relaxed into his pre-battle calm at the sound, and a moment's rustling behind him told the operative that his partner had done the same.

"Molly, are you foot-mobile?" asked the Marine. The young spellcaster seemed confused at the unfamiliar jargon, before gasping out, "Nope, sorry. Give me a sec."

Murphy responded quietly, "Molly, we may not have that second. Something's out there, and I think you pissed it off." His eyes focused forward, Shepard heard claws scrabbling at concrete for a moment, quickly followed by a stuttered _pffft_ of a silenced slug-thrower. "Make that 'definitely'."

Several more strange warbles echoed behind Shepard, but the operative's focus narrowed to his own end of the alleyway. Something big, fast, and strong had eclipsed the pale light still shining, and it threw itself towards the Marine with an unintelligible snarl. Monster claw met Varren Fang in the alley, and the monster stumbled back with blood leaking from a deep gash. Seeing his opportunity, Shepard threw his left hand forward in a biotic Throw. Although far too large to be sent flying, the monster stumbled back and lost its footing from the biotic pulse.

The analytical portion of the Marine's mind noticed that his helmet HUD had finally stabilized, and that his Avalanche's status was showing green. Thinking quickly, the Marine curled his fingers in the lightest Pull he could manage. The weak pulse slowly hauled the discarded weapon from the ground, and the operative snagged the drifting shotgun from the air before pointing and readying it with a single _click_.

"Hi." **BOOM.**

* * *

><p><em>Comments and criticism appreciated, as always!<em>


	5. Chapter 5: Shepard

"Reloading!"

His partner's yell sounded ragged, the desperate yell of someone facing real fear up close and personal. His mind spinning even as his shotgun ripped apart another enemy, Shepard rapidly threw together an oh-crap-hope-it-works plan. Pulling both his hands back, the N operative drew on biotic energy and deliberately unbalanced the attack. The two Throws ricocheted off of each other as they swept down the alleyway, tripping the monsters crowding down the narrow passage and sending the group collapsing into a heap.

"Switch!" With the nearest fanged monstrosity more than six feet away, the Marine spun and fired towards the opposite end of the alley. Murphy had already dropped to a knee, an empty clip dropping while her left hand snatched another from her vest. Shepard's shotgun blast flew above the crouched cop to strike another enemy behind her, the operative pausing for the requisite 1.5 seconds before firing another shot.

The targeted enemy dropped slowly, revealing a mass of figures behind it. Shadowed in the alley's dim light, they blocked out the weak glow from the nearby streetlamp. The seven foot-tall monsters, bipedal but clearly inhuman, hissed in a strange and guttural tone as they bounded forward. Less than fifteen feet away, the nearest one unhinged its jaw and hissed at the armored Marine.

Shepard grinned. His first Throw caught the charging _thing_ on the head, flipping it backwards to trip up the next two opponents. A quick shotgun blast brought the charge to a muddled mess, and the operative flicked his prized Avalanche to its "C" selector. _C for Carnage,_ thought Shepard wryly, before pulling the trigger.

**BOOM!** The supercharged shot ripped through the packed mass of enemies, sending bone shards flying with enough force to kill on their own. With the first enemies hobbled, Shepard dropped his Avalanche again and re-drew his Varren Fang. A quick haptic twitch opened his omnitool in its blue low-light mode, and another flick extended the disrupter blade. With his Fang gripped tightly in his right hand and his 'rupter glowing blue from his left, the Marine walked forward into the maelstrom.

Years of close-quarters combat had taught Shepard to ignore complicated bladework and one-on-one instincts in such a crazy melee. Instead, the operative swung his two blades in a deceptively simple figure-eight pattern, the armor-piercing weapons easily cutting through flesh and bone. Ignoring blocks raised against his weapons and only shifting slightly to counter attacks, Shepard kept up a slow but steady advance down his end of the alley. A 'ruptor sweep shredded a piece of coral, while the Marine's hardsuit easily blocked a scything claw that slashed across his gut. Step by step, Shepard walked slowly forward while keeping his twin weapons in constant motion.

To the fomori attackers, raised on horror stories of land-bound nightmares, the Marine seemed like an avenging ghost. His features hidden under a faceless black helmet, and his left hand shimmering in 'eldritch' energies, Shepard was a spectre that cut down any Servants which rose up to oppose him. A _whizz_ announced a flying projectile, but the tiny thing bounced harmlessly off of the N operative's k-bars. Inside his helmet, Shepard grinned maniacally. _This_ was CQC, and _this_ he could do right! He'd finish with this group, turn to help out the others, and-

**Thump!** A massive shape, bleeding light-colored blood from a Fang-sweep across its belly, crashed through the startled Marine's defenses and crushed him to the ground beneath its bulk. Obviously pained, the creature ignored its wounds and quickly grabbed Shepard's wrists before the Marine could slice the new attacker. Its weight pinned the human to the ground, keeping Shepard from wriggling away and swinging his Fang properly. Seeing their opening, the packed mass of attackers followed their leader's example and charged forward, silent save for the scrape of claws on concrete.

Shepard barely noticed, his attention still focused on the monster pinning him to the ground. With his arms immobile, the operative couldn't manage even a simple Throw or Barrier, and settled instead for pivoting his Varren Fang slightly. The machete-like weapon ripped bloody chunks from Shepard's attacker, but the monster ignored the bright blood running from its arms and kept the Marine pinned. With one of the smaller attackers close enough to attack, Shepard grimaced and pivoted in place to dodge a swinging claw aimed at his head. A sudden pain at his neck let the operative know he hadn't escaped the follow-up attack.

Locked into their deadly struggle, both monster and Marine didn't realize the threat until it had wrapped itself around the monster's neck. A rumbling growl broke the silent scuffle, and the Marine tore his hands free as the bulk above him wavered and began to collapse. Human instinct and long-suppressed memories of Home recognized that deep snarl, and Shepard scrambled away as the massive dog - _Mouse_ - ripped the large attacker's throat free in a silvery spray of blood. His 'ruptor gutting a charging attacker, Shepard brought his two weapons together before resuming his attack.

Their leader dead and the killing spectre once again coming for them, the remaining fomor backed up as the Marine steadily advanced. One fomor, limping from a Fang slash to his leg, croaked a series of unintelligible syllables. The entire pack turned as one, loping away as the Marine brought his weapons back to a ready stance. Mouse, his jaw dripping inhuman blood, watched intently as the _things_ retreated. Shepard slowly lowered his weapons, closing his 'ruptor with a haptic twitch and awkwardly cleaning his Fang with the side of his armor. The operative retrieved and shrank his Avalanche, stowing it and turning around to see Molly's drumstick pointed directly at him, the tip once again glowing with unnatural fire.

"Drop the weapon. Hands up."

The young mage's voice cracked slightly, but her hand remained steady and the tip of the drumstick - _that's a weapon, remember_ - remained locked onto the Marine's black-armored form. Slowly raising his hands above his head, Shepard paused before asking simply, "Why?"

"Molly?" The cop, Murphy, had her weapon out but pointed down in between the two humans. "Molly, we're all on the same side here. Put the stick down. I-"

"Bullshit," snarled the younger woman. "That's an Outsider, Murph. Its magic isn't alive, it's deader than a corpse. Either we put it down now, or it backstabs us later."

"Molly, I met him at St. Mary's," chided the cop. "That's consecrated ground, remember? Most things of the claws and tentacles variety can't even walk inside, let alone sit down for some coffee. Besides which, Forthill and Mouse both vouch for him."

"Then they're wrong!" yelled Molly. "You think this _thing_" - her hand shook, waving at the black-armored Marine - "just happened to show up right now? Harry was the only one who could kill the damn things, and one shows up ten minutes after...after-"

"Biotics," stated Shepard. Murphy glanced at him, which the Marine took as an invitation to continue. "Biotics. No magic. Eezo only."

"Shut up! Just...shut up!" The drumstick dropped for a second, an instant in realtime. For a CQC specialist like Shepard, it was a subjective eternity. His left hand lightly struck Molly's right, pushing her wand to point into the air, while the Marine pivoted to the left and grabbed her wand wrist with his right hand. The young mage struggled, but against Shepard's iron-hard grip she was effectively pinned. She suddenly stopped struggling, her blue eyes going blank, and the Marine involuntarily tensed for the expected attack.

Nothing happened for a half second, and the Marine forced himself to relax. _She's an ally. Negotia- Shit! Move!_ The Marine loosed his hold on Molly, scrambling backwards and grabbing desperately for his Avalanche as two more scaly attackers dashed forward, croaking as they came. His fire limited by the friendlies in front of him, Shepard stopped and quickly ripped out his 'ruptor blade.

Instincts stopped him. With the two _things_ about to hit him, Shepard stopped still and watched as they charged forward - without disturbing the ground beneath them. His Avalanche gripped loosely in his right hand and his blue 'ruptor blade in his left, the Marine blew out a deep breath and said, "Stop. Please."

The creatures abruptly disappeared, leaving the three humans facing each other amid piles of inhuman corpses. Murphy cleared her throat and asked, "I guess it's too late to ask everyone to get along?" Shepard and Molly glared at her. She stared grimly back, before turning to the mage. "Molly. He's human. Mouse trusts him, and if that dog's good for one thing other than eating me out of my half-pay," the dog sneezed at that, "he's good at sensing something as wrong as an Outsider."

The cop turned back to Shepard. "Molly's a friend. She's been through a lot." Murphy swallowed slightly. "We all have. Work with us here." The Marine shrugged his armored shoulders in reply.

Murphy seemed to take that as an affirmative, and turned to Molly. "You can track something if you've got a piece of them, right?" Molly bobbed her head. "Good. Look around, and see if you can find any bits attached to one of the live ones that ran away. We need to track these things to the source."

Molly swallowed, looking around at the piles of dead monsters around her. Moving back to where he had previously stood, Shepard opened his combat 'corder and played back the fight. _Right...there!_ One shotgun pellet had shredded a monster's arm, leaving the arm detached but the monster alive. The Marine picked up the severed limb and handed it to the mage, ignoring her glare in return. "This one's still alive."

Two minutes of apparent mumbo-jumbo later, the two fighters followed the mage out of the alleyway and into the streets of pre-Discovery Chicago.

* * *

><p>"That's the place."<p>

"You sure?"

Shepard wasn't sure how Molly had managed to crank up the intensity of her death glare, but she'd managed it somehow. He shrugged in reply, studying the target building as he relaxed into his pre-combat calm.

Warehouse, apparently deserted. Two openings at ground level, one groundcar-sized and the other clearly meant for anyone smaller than an average krogan. Windows near the roof, with a separate set at the top of the building. Streetlamps at ground level, with no foot traffic and precious little car traffic outside. "Charming place."

Murphy snorted. "Calling it a shithole would be an insult to self-respecting shitholes everywhere." She appraised the place. "Still, the area's awfully quiet and there's very little police presence around here to worry about. If I was a villain with bad taste in evil minions, I could do worse than a place like this." Mouse snorted in reply.

Molly looked at the warehouse. "I'll throw up a veil to get us in. Past that, crazy-man here can go ahead to take the hits and I'll dazzle them with a good lightshow."

Shepard shook his head. "Not me. You breach at door, I'll go second floor. Sweep and clear, opposite sides to center. Set?"

"Molly, Shepard, hold up." Shepard noted that Murphy was clearly used to commanding - she spoke in the no-bullshit tone that he'd used back when he still had Marines to lead. "We'll do both. Shepard, your purply stuff should let you survive under fire better than us, so you'll make some noise and get everyone's attention. Molly, we'll go in slow through the front door under a veil before Shepard makes his appearance. Shepard, handle the regulars. Molly, help him out. I'll try to take out their leaders or spell casters before you make your appearance."

The Marine shrugged in response, before detaching his left wrist-cam and handing it to the cop. "Camera."

Murphy nodded, grabbing a roll of duct tape from a vest pocket and stretching some to hold the wrist-cam on her silenced slugthrower. "Molly, are you OK?"

Molly nodded mutely. With a last glare at Shepard, she began to mutter a strange incantation. The Marine ignored it, but couldn't stifle his surprise when cop and mage both disappeared from sight. Wildly looking around, the operative forced himself to calm as Molly's laughter echoed creepily from the empty air next to him.

"We're going in, Shepard. Watch us on your cam, and fire on anything with scales and bad teeth."

Shepard watched his camera as the two women and their canine companion crossed the street, with Molly's strange veil making them invisible even to the Marine's infrared filters. The small side door opened silently outwards, an illusion of the door in its old place hopefully fooling anyone inside. Murphy raised her gun and panned it across the room, giving the operative a good look inside.

Crates were piled high in the center of the room. Each one contained a human. Most were asleep, others either pretending to be - or dead. The center of the massive pile was carefully stacked, but other cages had clearly been haphazardly tossed and leaned drunkenly to the side. More of the strange scaled monsters stalked around the massive room, while coral-like growths dotted the walls and ceiling. Light gleamed dimly from weak florescent panels set in the ceiling, while a team of monsters hauled in another crate from a waiting van.

"Shepard...any time now," hissed Murphy to the camera fixed on her gun. Shepard said nothing, merely spreading his arms and creating a massive biotic flare.

For the second time that day, the operative Charged forward, aiming for a high-set window. Flying across the street, the Marine burst through the side of the warehouse in a shower of rubble. Glass flew forward, spreading across the warehouse like rain, as the Marine came bounding behind it. **Boom.** A creature lost its head to the tiny pellets of an eezo-accelerated shotgun. **Boom**. A leaping monster was sawed in half by the blast. **Boom**. The shotgun roared and hissed, its heat vanes extending to cool it off.

Switching his Avalanche to his off hand, Shepard quickly grabbed his pistol and started firing. The smaller weapon didn't fire the swarms of pellets that a full shotgun could, but with a steady hand it was a deadly weapon. Abruptly spinning and firing behind him, the Marine sent several rounds through an enemy trying to sneak up behind him on the same catwalk. Keeping up a measured fire cadence, the N operative crossed the length of the warehouse and jumped down. His armor and his augments absorbing the fall, Shepard turned and kept moving, firing with both shotgun and pistol as he moved.

The Servants had been worn down by the earlier assault, and seeing the ghost in their own lair was terrifying. The fomor ran, jumped, or shot at the black monster, but his fire-sticks shredded any Servant stupid enough to attack him head-on. Blowtube shots bounced away, repelled by an invisible shield that the spectre could somehow hold up, and the remaining Servants frantically called for orders. The Master responded.

Still moving and firing on anything scaled, Shepard's rounds sparked as they hit a translucent barrier around a hunched enemy. _Primary target: engage._ Shifting his stance, the operative kept up a steady fire on the shielded opponent with his pistol, keeping his shotgun free-roaming as more enemies charged in. His hardsuit warning of a moving target behind him, Shepard spun and crouched as a jagged piece of coral swung above him. While still crouched, the operative brought his shotgun around to shoot the new opponent.

It was the only thing that saved him. A jet of flame flew above him to strike the nearby opponent, flash-frying its scaly hide and killing it almost instantly. Rolling awkwardly to the side, Shepard grimaced as another flame blast nearly cooked him. With his k-bars barely depleted, the operative realized that his kinetic shielding was doing very little against the red-hot flame. _Just like the maws-_

Shaking his head and jumping to his feet, Shepard projected a Throw in time with the next flame blast. The mass effect field didn't wipe out the oncoming fire, but it stopped its forward momentum, and the strange fire merrily burned itself out in the middle of the air. Gratified that he now had a counter to the new attack, no matter how haphazard it was, the operative ran to the side as yet another blast of flame shot towards him. A sidestep, a just-in-time Throw, and the unnatural fire slowly drifted towards the ceiling.

Another _whizz_ of a small projectile reminded the armored Marine that the hunched fire-throwing creature wasn't alone, and Shepard fired with his pistol as another scaled monster tried to close from behind. The tiny bullets shot through the monster, a lucky shot hitting something vital in the creature's head. Shepard turned, his mind going through the prep-work to Charge forward, and stepped to-

...

The operative regained consciousness slowly, wincing as the pain hit him with all the subtlety of a freight train. Shepard's head was throbbing from an impact, and his helmet cams showed a twisted steel girder lying next to him on the dirty cement floor. With his head clearing slightly as his hardsuit's wakeup drugs kicked in, the operative pretended to be unconscious and checked the area with his suit HUD.

The hunched fire-throwing enemy was less than ten feet away, waving his crooked arms and gesticulating wildly. Unlike the "dumb muscle" creatures that Shepard had faced earlier, the leader seemed almost withered compared to his underlings. His polished scales glimmered in the florescent light, and his minimal clothes and kit were obviously well-made, but the leader's body itself had graduated _magna cum laude_ from the School of Hard Knocks.

Shepard's ruminations were interrupted by a particularly nasty twinge of pain, and although the operative silenced any noise that he might have made, he couldn't avoid the reflexive twitch. A nearby thug croaked in an unfamiliar language, and the assorted nasties turned to face the prone human. Dropping the charade, Shepard turned his expressionless helmet towards the obvious leader, but said nothing.

"This?" hissed the fire-thrower. "This little worm destroyed my servants? This weakling keeps me from the Nails?" It began walking in a circle around the prone Marine, wisely keeping its distance from Shepard. "The maggot wriggles from the fire," it hissed. "I shall scorch the worm until it begs to tell me what it has done with the N-"

The monster's head exploded, showering the area with bits of grey matter. Standing behind the monster on top of the pile of crates and lowering a massive gnarled staff, a previously invisible grey-cloaked man turned and aimed at a group of enemies. Using the opportunity, Shepard scrambled drunkenly to his feet and clenched his fist. The old, tough concrete wall went up in his mind, and in the physical world the Barrier swept over him in a familiar wave. Covered head to toe in a shimmering purple field, Shepard reached for his Fang even as he toggled his 'ruptor blade. He crouched, spinning to face the largest bulk of enemies, but found nothing but backs. The creatures were running, scrambling for the closest exit, even as Grey Cloak killed them one by one. With his suit's computer rapidly estimating the location, Shepard sprinted after the nearest enemies. One croaked in surprise as it tripped, and the Marine's omnitool disruptor blade swept through it in passing.

Running behind the panicked group, Shepard hamstrung another enemy and gutted it, making sure to hit the stomach and avoid the head. _Scream loud._ As he'd hoped, the dying creature thrashed and croaked even as the others ran, and the Marine stopped at the door of the dimly-lit warehouse to let the fear-maddened creatures escape. After waiting several seconds to ensure that the creatures had left, Shepard cleaned his knife and stored it before jogging back into the warehouse. Grey Cloak vanished and revealed Molly, Murphy, and Mouse standing on top of the crates, to the Marine's complete lack of surprise.

Ignoring the weakly-thrashing creature on the ground, the Marine headed directly towards the cages in the center of the room. With his 'ruptor still out, Shepard walked slowly around the cages and slashed the locks as he passed, the steel bars parting under the disruptor blade's cutting power. Many of the people stumbled out of the cages, dazed and confused. Others, either catatonic or unconscious, huddled in the corner until the black-armored figure had passed. One man, stark naked, sprinted for the exit as soon as his cage was slashed open.

Molly took a step towards Shepard, but halted as Murphy put a hand on her shoulder. "Not now, Molly. Our new friend is in a killing mood. Wait over here until he's done."

Stopping for a second by the weakly thrashing creature that he'd left alive earlier, the operative paused momentarily before decapitating it with a swing of his 'ruptor. Watching dispassionately as the scaly head slowly rolled away, Shepard slashed again at the creature's stomach. The powerful disruptor blade passed through flesh and bone with no resistance, ripping the creature open. The Marine followed with a backhand strike, ripping the corpse's guts again, before quickly reversing and ripping it throat-to-groin. Wildly slashing at the corpse, the Marine kept chopping faster and faster, the blue-glowing blade ripping the body into smaller shreds as he kept swinging. Shepard could hear a roaring sound as he swung, and dimly realized that he was screaming at the top of his lungs.

...

"Shepard." Murphy's voice brooked no nonsense, but the black-armored Marine didn't notice her. "Shepard, stop!" The unfamiliar man started roaring, the sound echoing weirdly out of his helmet speakers. "Lieutenant Shepard, what the _hell_ are you doing?" The helmet turned as the man straightened up as the cop stalked over to him. "Lieutenant, I have a mission to complete, and a pack of prisoners that need immediate evac. I need a secure perimeter, a driver or two, and a working car to complete my mission. I do not need you pulling a Hannibal Lecter on the corpse over here. Either shape up or get the _fuck_ out of my operation!"

The black, expressionless helmet turned to face Murphy, who stood still as the Marine studied her. Light-colored blood dripped steadily from the transparent blade on his left hand, and the freed captives stared dully as their saviors faced off. Soldier and policewoman stared for seconds, before the Marine ducked his head and muttered, "Okay."

Turning to the captives, Shepard deactivated his 'ruptor with a quick shake and let the blood formerly on it fall to the floor. He deliberately ignored Molly lowering her drumstick-wand, while Murphy pretended to not notice Shepard collapse and stow his pistol. Cop, soldier, and mage turned to the captives and unconsciously divided tasks: Molly checked the vitals on the standing captives, while Murphy dragged out the immobile ones. Shepard grabbed capsules from his belt, smearing the light blue medigel on exposed wounds. Murphy and Molly both noticed the healing salve, and both looked envious as the bioplasm quickly clotted open wounds and dulled painful sores.

"Georgia!" Molly and Shepard both turned at Murphy's yell. Without prompting, mage and Marine ran as the cop pulled an obviously pregnant woman free from a solitary cage. The woman's eyes were glazed over, and a small red mark on her shoulder attested to why. Murphy turned as Shepard tensed up. "Sh- Lieutenant, keep working on the wounded. Georgia Borden's a friend, I've got this." The armored Marine paused before slowly rising, his hand almost absently collapsing his shotgun as he moved.

Within five minutes, eighteen men and women were stacked in two unmarked vans, with Shepard and Murphy taking the wheel. Passing by, Shepard muttered "Sorry" almost too quietly for Murphy to hear.

Murphy's mouth quirked into a smile as the two vans pulled out into the street.

* * *

><p>"Jesus!"<p>

"What?"

"Could you drive any worse?"

"We got here alive, didn't we?"

"I doubt that," Murphy grumbled. "Shepard, unless I am about to bleed out, I am _never_ getting into a car that you're driving."

Shepard shrugged in response, turning to face the back lot of St. Mary's Church. Even though it was past midnight, one room was shining with light, and a muscled young man ran from the church's back door. "Murphy! It's Georgia, they took-" His voice trailed off awkwardly as Georgia stumbled slowly from one of the vans. "I-"

In a few steps, the Marine was at the young man's side. Shepard's gentle shove sent him stumbling forward, and William Borden half-ran to his pregnant wife. Her blank mask broke as they embraced, and the two sank slowly to the cement curb, sobbing into each others' arms.

...

"You wear that thing when you're sleeping?" Murphy asked. Shepard had taken off his helmet, much to the former captives' relief, but kept his intimidating black armor on while he sipped a beer that Forthill had produced from parts unknown.

"Yep," Shepard responded absently. Murphy searched his face for the joke, and frowned when she realized his sincerity.

"Look, Shepard, we're all grateful for what you did back there. You saved a lot of people, and I'm not going to forget that. Forthill will let you stay here for as long as you need, and I - we - could use your help. Things are getting bad around here, and we need every gun we can get."

"I...yeah," the Marine responded. "Yeah, I'd like that."

The two people sat by the side of the group, nursing their beers and watching the small crowd mingle uncertainly. Looking over the group, both veterans lost themselves in their own thoughts. On their own, each one observed that the men and women were mostly intact, although a few had obviously been mentally or physically scarred by the experience. Still, compared to the sheer mess that Mexico - or X57 - had been, the outcome had been positively amazing. Relaxed by the beer, it took Murphy a moment to notice Shepard straightening up. "What's up?" she asked.

"Runner," he answered, eyes tracking a small woman slinking out a back door. "I'm pursuing. Stay here."

"Like hell," Murphy shot back, following the hulking Marine through the small group. "Got a plan?"

Shepard shrugged, which Murphy already knew was his way of saying "Dunno." She mutely walked behind the Marine as he threaded his way past the beds in the next room, eyes locked on a door in the back. As the duo slowed, they could hear muffled sobbing from inside. Murphy raised her hand to knock, but Shepard's gauntlet gripped her hand halfway up.

"My call," he whispered, before raising his voice. "Ma'am? I've got a few questions for you."

"Go away," sobbed the voice from inside.

"I've got beer?" asked the Marine. There was silence behind the door, followed by a broken laugh. "Cold. It's...Budweiser? Tastes like," his voice trailed off, "um, really beer-y beer."

The door cracked open slightly, revealing a bathroom and a wizened old woman. She glanced at Murphy and Shepard, and looked down nervously. "Look, I'm sorry for causing you trouble. I just - my husband was in the apartment when they came in. They hit him with a club, and-" she let out a strangled sob, unable to continue.

Shepard cleared his throat. "Ma'am, you won't do yourself any good in here."

The woman glanced up, now angry. "Yeah?"

The Marine gazed back steadily. "Yeah. Got experience in this." His voice unconsciously took on a slight twang, one of the last remnants of his heritage. "Lost home, family, friends when the slavers came through. The damn four-eyes shot some folks, took the others, burned everything an' salted the earth. Ma'am, you stay alone right now and you'll walk down some awful dark roads."

The woman paused, and Murphy used the moment to slide in and help steady her. The former captive stumbled back, supported by Murphy while the Marine held out his half-empty bottle. "Try some booze, ma'am. Get enough and it'll do a number on yer memory."

...

Back at 'their' spot in the corner, Murphy toasted Shepard with her own Bud. "Nice pickup lines there, Shepard. I mean, 'I've got beer?' That was a classic, but I think you could've done better with 'You busy tonight at 3 AM?'" The Marine ducked his head, but Murphy could see him trying to hide a grin.

He opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a lazily drifting snowflake landing on his face. He brushed it away, but more quickly followed. The air chilled quickly, and a cold wind picked up alongside Mouse's growl in the strangely dark room. All conversation immediately died among the little group, and the gathered humans stared at the inhumanly beautiful creature that had casually strode through the stone wall.

The former prisoners huddled for warmth in a corner, while Mouse faced off against the new arrival. Shepard, his shotgun already out and braced for a "C" shot, didn't recognize the strange woman. Molly did. Keening softly, she dove under a nearby bed and wrapped her arms around herself. Murphy had her pistol out and ready, but didn't bother raising it. Against Mab, Queen of the Winter Fae, the bullets would be only slightly more effective than flicking pebbles.

Mab ignored the gathered humans, instead fixing her gaze on the black-armored Marine. "Human," she purred, "I have a quarrel to pick with thee."

* * *

><p><em>And on that nice happy ending, expect the next chapter to shift to Dresden's POV. Comments and criticism appreciated, folks, even a "yay new chapter" review really helps me keep writing!<em>


	6. Chapter 6: Dresden

_What's that? An update? Madness!_

* * *

><p>"Billions of years to make life, millenia of human civilization to get us past the atmosphere, and in the end we go interstellar because some aliens forgot to pick up their trash," I announced to my audience.<p>

My audience, which currently consisted of the side of my shuttle, had nothing to say in return. I glared at the white wall for a second, before continuing with my diatribe. "The first aliens we meet look like lizard furries on LSD, the next are something that Captain Kirk would screw...and then there's the Roswell-wannabes," I concluded, sweeping my arm across the imaginary turian, asari, and salarian there.

My Kodiak shuttle had some sort of faster-than-light drive, but it was slow as hell. Stuck for too long in the tiny ship with far too much to think about, I had thrown myself into this new world with desperate enthusiasm. I scrounged up a working omnitool from the pilot's compartment of my pilfered UT-47 Kodiak, and learned the basic hand-motions to activate it. Having spent the past twenty years keeping my distance from anything more complicated than a revolver, I put myself through a technological crash course. I memorized terabytes of new jargon including what a "terabyte" was, as in "I had to delete terabytes of Fornax porn from my new omnitool."

The omnitool was clean after a few tries. It took a handle of the pilot's illicit whiskey to erase the mental images, but with that little scare behind me, I concentrated on understanding the new galaxy that I'd found myself tossed into. The human Systems Alliance was a medium-sized fish in a big galaxy, and alien opinion of humans apparently ranged from "what a bunch of shaved apes" to "break out the dreadnoughts, that's a lot of shaved apes." Humans had spread across the galaxy, but not without a hefty struggle. The batarians that I'd killed - I still grimaced at the memory, and at how easy it'd been to do it - were part of a larger problem. Slavers, pirates, hostile governments, and terrorists collectively made life difficult for the average colonist on the scattered human worlds.

My life, a world of ghosts and demons and things that went bump in the dark, didn't make the news. Conspiracy theorists and wannabe-Satanists still hawked their messages, but no one was listening. The stars were alive and full of new things to discover, and everyone remotely _homo sapiens_-related was reaching for it. I felt strangely disappointed as I read on. My world of monsters might have been full of terror, danger, and death, but it was _my_ struggle, _my_ fight. Seeing it so marginalized struck a chord inside me.

When traveling through realspace, I opened the Kodiak's side door and practiced with my blasting rod in the vacuum. Manipulating matter and energy is tough when there isn't a whole lot to work with, which originally kept me from my usual answer to slobbering monsters ("big fire, monster dies"). The shuttle's slow drive meant that I had plenty of time to kill, so I worked on these potentially life-saving skills even as the little spacecraft kept chugging towards Earth.

_You're distracting yourself_, my subconscious whispered to me. _Harry Dresden, fearless wizard extraordinaire, can't face reality_. I drank the pilot's whiskey stash dry to shut the little voice up; thankfully for my sanity, the world's second oldest problem solver quieted my inner demons. I fell asleep with the tiny shuttle spinning around me.

...

The alarm buzzed, waking me up to a world-class hangover. "Go 'way," I muttered, half-heartedly slapping at my annoyingly persistent alarm clock. The damned thing warbled as I swung, and I belatedly realized that the sound was coming from my new omni-tool. I slowly cracked my eyes open and glared at the orange device on my arm, wishing that I could just give in and fry it.

"Never liked those things," a deep voice rumbled. "Too many buttons, and the beeps got annoying real quick."

I spun in the shuttle's cramped main compartment, finding myself face-to-face with an unwelcome arrival. Currently in the form of a tall black man, he wore dark blue 20th century-style coveralls. A trucker's cap rested on his head, and "Jake" was sewn into his nametag. My senses, both mundane and magical, couldn't find anything extra-ordinary about him, aside from the fact that he'd shown up unannounced. He looked, in other words, absolutely normal.

Looks can be deceiving. "Uriel," I muttered blearily, straightening up slowly and swatting again at my beeping omnitool.

"The same," the Light of God responded easily. "You're in a whole heap of trouble, boy."

When the Almighty's spook-in-charge says that you've got problems headed your way, it's time to run for the hills. I sat up, crossed my arms, and glared at the archangel. "Screw you."

The angelic being chuckled, looking like nothing more than an old and wise janitor. "You kiss your mother with that mouth?"

"My mother's dead, asshole." My patience had worn thin. "You sent me here, to Shepard's time, and now you show up and expect me to clean up your mess?"

Uriel sighed, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his hips. "I wish I had. No, you're here for a reason, Dresden."

"Fuck off," I shot back. Cooped up in my tiny craft for days with too little to keep me occupied, I'd already screamed at the unfairness of it all. Now the anger had blown past, leaving me tired and bitter. "Get another puppet to use. I'm through with jumping every damn time you pull the strings. I-"

"I'm sorry." The words stunned me into silence, and I waited for the archangel to continue. "I wish it could've happened another way, but you're needed here."

"Sure," I drawled. "I'm needed here, I'm needed there, I'm needed every time there's another hole in the dike. I'm done, Uriel. Now scram. Vamoose. Make like a bakery truck and haul buns."

He quirked an eyebrow. "You done yet?"

"Shoo!" I waved my arms for emphasis.

The archangel sighed, leaning back and working out some nonexistent kinks in his neck. "Whole lot at stake this time, Harry. It's more than you and yours that stand to lose if the other side wins."

He was calm, focused, and fairly persuasive. I ignored him and started counting under my breath. _Faeries, Denarians, Darkhallow-_ Uriel frowned and interrupted me: "Got something to share, Dresden?"

I snorted and answered, "I'm counting apocalypses. Apocalypti. Whatever."

"What?"

"I've stopped three of them, not counting the mini ones."

The Light of God frowned. "And I've stopped your reality from ending literally more times than you can count. What's your point?"

"My point, mister angel," I grumpily replied, "is that I think I've met my apocalypse quota for a lifetime or two. Or three. Can't you put someone else on world-not-exploding duty for a bit?"

Uriel chuckled. "Sure. His name's John Shepard."

I scowled. "I mean someone who can replace me. Come on, how many apocalypsi can there be?"

The angel shook his head. "Enough."

"Look," I said, "I'm gratified that I'm apparently your go-to mortal for keeping the galaxy spinning. I'm a little less gratified that you haven't paid me yet, but I'm willing to overlook that for now on account of you being an angel and all."

The archangel chuckled. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," I replied sourly. "But right now, your agenda can wait. I'm going to get to Earth, have a chat with the White Council and see how wizards are faring around here, and maybe check out my old town. Galaxy-saving can wait."

Uriel held up his hand, and my shuttle suddenly stopped humming. The FTL light show outside the Kodiak's window ceased, and I realized that the ship was drifting in realspace. "Can't go back, wizard," the archangel replied somberly. "Can't step a foot on Earth."

I punched him.

Now, I'll admit that hitting an archangel of God was probably not the smartest thing that I'd ever done. In fact, it ranks up with starting a war and pissing off unkillable immortals in my personal annals of stupidity. It was, however, incredibly satisfying.

Uriel cradled his head. "Sorry, think I deserved that," he mumbled through a fractured jaw.

I didn't notice. "I can't go back?" I wondered out loud.

"You've got unpaid debts, Dresden." Uriel's jaw had instantly repaired itself, the angel staring intensely at me. "The devil's gonna get her due if you dance in her demesne too long," he declared, grinning at the alliteration.

"Mab," I murmured to myself. "You're saying that my debt to Mab hasn't been paid yet."

"And the moment your big toe touches Earth's atmosphere, the Queen of Air and Darkness will have your scrawny ass," Uriel replied. "Can't go home again, Dresden."

I sighed, cradling my head in my arms. "Find someone else. Please."

"There ain't one," he stated bluntly. "Storm's coming, wizard. No one and nothing's gonna be far enough to escape it. It'll test you all, and you sure as Hell don't want to fail. You lose, everyone dies."

I stared at him blankly. "What?"

He nodded. "Everyone. Men, women, children, everything from the sea to the sky. Gone."

I wanted to doubt him. I wanted to shove the bastard out of my shuttle, change course, and drift until everything went cold. I'd been Fate's little plaything for a long, long time, and I was tired to the bone. Hadn't I fought enough, bled enough, _died_ enough?

To this day, I don't know why I met the archangel's eyes and asked, "When do I start?"

Uriel nodded once. "You can build a bonfire from a spark. It starts now." I glared, he grinned, and God's spymaster disappeared from my tiny shuttle without a sound. I was left drifting in my tiny shuttle, my head spinning with far more questions than answers.

"Incoming message. Arcturus Station, Alliance Fleet," droned the annoying new 'friend' on my forearm. I shut up the VI by stabbing buttons randomly, but accidentally pressed the flashing green button on the thing. The omni-tool's top window quickly expanded to the size of a small TV, and the holographic screen cleared to show a grizzled old man in an unfamiliar uniform. I blinked at the sight, even as my memory recognized the blue clothes as Alliance officer material.

"Dresden. I...hope I haven't caught you at a bad time," the officer began cautiously.

"No, not at all," I responded sourly, making a half-assed attempt to straighten my hair with my right hand.

The officer on the screen cleared his throat. "Mr. Dresden, I'm Admiral Stephen Hackett of the Fifth Fleet, and the Alliance has need of your services. We'll pay triple your standard retainer, adjusted for inflation, with half up front. Do you have a checking account?"

The matter-of-fact tone caught me by surprise, and it took me a few seconds to grasp the real meaning of his words. "Wha?"

"You're a private investigator, Mr. Dresden. We need something investigated privately." My brain was still struggling to catch up with the sudden revelation, so I settled for an eloquent "Guh?"

The old admiral laughed. "Son, I have analysts to keep track of the analysts of my analysts. You're too similar to your historical namesake to be coincidental." He scratched his chin, lost in thought for a moment. "Come to think of it, I never believed in coincidence in the first place."

I glared at the tiny image hovering over my left arm and declared, "Munh." Harry Dresden, fountain of wisdom, has spoken on the matter.

He looked like anyone's kind old grandpa. I didn't believe it for an instant. You don't get to admiral's rank by collecting box tops, and Hackett commanded the Alliance's premier fleet - he was as gentle as a rabid grizzly. If he was playing up the "good ol' boy" look, then Hackett probably had a plan that involved ghouls, vampires, or lawyers. I was worried.

But Uriel was right. Probably. I shook my head and answered the waiting officer: "Fine. Tell me your problem."

* * *

><p><em>You're an idiot, Harry<em>.

"So what else is new?" I grunted, awkwardly reaching behind me to hook up my hardsuit's air hose.

_You're going to get us killed, Harry._

"Never bothered you before, did it?" I responded, my mind running through the already well-practiced pre-vacuum routine. "Helmet, hose, neck, gloves, waist, knees, boots, HUD-"

_This is madness!_

"This! Is!..." I trailed off at the strange looks I was getting from the nearby techs, and mentally resolved to stop responding to my subconscious. The black-wearing twerp was a real piece of work, although he had an unfortunate habit of being right.

Looking over my little Kodiak shuttle, I studied the appropriately-named "combat cockroach." True to his word, Hackett had taken the already top-of-the-line shuttle and upgraded many of its parts, along with making its electronics foolproof. Then again, whoever designed said foolproof systems hadn't counted on me, so I kept my fingers crossed that the little thing would keep working.

"Ready to go, sir?" A young engineer stood at attention alongside the Kodiak, eyes locked forward and standing uncomfortably straight. I walked in front of him, and met his eyes, trying to understand what was going on here. My knowledge of most things military ranged from "almost nothing" to "diddly-squat," but I was pretty sure that soldiers didn't stand at attention like that unless someone was wearing a pointy hat and swearing at them.

_Harry, you idiot_, I kicked myself mentally. _It's you_. As a self-proclaimed wizard, I was used to strange looks and sideways glares. I handled ridicule, skepticism, and disbelief every day my name stayed in the phonebook under "Wizard." I could deflect an inquisitive reporter, bluff an angry cop, or spin a lie to someone who wanted to stay oblivious without batting an eye. Positive press was something new for me.

Even a little browsing on the extranet had seen my name mentioned as the enigmatic "Hero of Terra Nova." I'd spent years fighting anonymously, with most of my publicity generated from an unfortunate incident with daytime TV host Larry Fowler's lighting system. Now, thanks to a single recording, I was one of the most talked-about humans in the galaxy. Not for the first time, I wondered what roasted archangel tasted like.

"What's your name?"

"Specialist Schaeffer, sir," the man - kid - responded instantly. I studied him for a second, noting his stance and his stare. The kid was fidgeting despite his ridiculous "block of wood" pose, and his eyes kept twitching towards me as I moved around. I diagnosed him with a bad case of the hero-worships and wondered how Captain America dealt with this.

"Um," I began cautiously. "You know who I am, yeah?"

"N6 Operative Harry Dresden, sir!" chorused GI Joe far too loudly. "Hero of Terra Nova, sir!" If he stood any straighter, he'd turn into a board and fall over.

"I...at ease, uh, specialist," I responded slowly, fumbling over the unfamiliar jargon. "You understand that I was never here, right?"

The kid's ramrod-straight posture relaxed slightly, and he frowned slightly. "Are you going to send us to jail or something, sir?"

Glancing around the hangar, I could see orange-wearing techs glancing over at us, their expressions worried. The specialist probably had some sort of radio on him transmitting to the other engineers. Happy that my helmet hid my pained grimace, I wished that I had a crane to yank my foot from my mouth. Judging between my two goals of pissing off the Alliance and pissing off Uriel, I settled on honesty.

"Did you believe in the oath you swore when you joined up?" The specialist - and a few of the other engineers - nodded frantically.

I nodded in response. "Works for me." The entire roomful of soldiers came to attention and saluted as I boarded my shuttle, and I awkwardly returned it.

For some reason I couldn't place, I was grinning like a maniac all the way to the surface.

...

The Kodiak's VI slowly settled the tiny shuttle onto the surface, and I took my first hesitant steps out onto Luna. "That's one small step for me..." I muttered under my breath, bouncing in the Moon's light gravity, "...and one giant leap for smartass-kind."

After my exciting stint on the exotic vacation site of X57, I knew what to expect in lower gravity. I bounded across the grey surface with 30-foot leaps, kicking up eons-old dirt with each step. I'd landed just over a mile from the rogue AI's underground lair, and had already relaxed into a pre-battle calm. I would be fighting with an entire navy for backup, I had most of my combat gear excepting my staff and my force rings, and I was fighting a nicely soulless machine. "Just like kicking a sandcastle," I said to myself.

Then I looked up.

There's an iconic picture from the Apollo missions, taken by an astronaut on the lunar surface. With the grey lunar landscape stretching out in front, the Earth is hovering like a fragile blue marble in the moon's "sky." I had seen those images when I was six years old, after Dad had died and I'd desperately wanted to be somewhere else. I could recall that image with near-perfect clarity during my whirlwind tour of the Midwest foster home circuit, and had taken some comfort in it when life had swerved on another bad turn. It was amazing. It was beautiful. And right now, I was living it.

I didn't curse, or even manage an appreciative whistle. I simply stood in the sunlight, drinking in the fact that I was honest-to-God standing on the freaking Moon. In everything I'd seen, in everything I'd done, I had never experienced anything like this.

Then a rocket hit me, and life became depressingly familiar.

...

The ancient Spartans were renowned for being laconic: in keeping with their traditions of austerity, they would attempt to explain themselves with as few words as possible. Although short, their one-word answers could beautifully sum up a moment in time and space.

The word for the moment right there and then was "shit."

Another rocket missed me by inches, leaving a drifting smoke trail in the Moon's thin atmosphere as it shot past my new favorite rock. I leaned out from the other side of the cover, aiming my purloined missile launcher back at the turret which had just tried to ruin my day. A pull of the trigger, the boxy launcher shuddering in my hand as it fired its surprisingly small projectiles towards the base, and I ducked back as one of the annoying drones buzzed towards me.

The dark lunar surface lit up with bright flashes as my rockets hit the launcher, but I suppressed my emotions and concentrated on my inner core of power. I carefully drew together an evocation spell as the damned drone shot around my cover, its gun already firing. Holding my blasting rod in my right hand, I aimed at the swerving menace and let fly.

Magic lets you cheat the laws of physics, but reality is a lot like Vegas - the house always wins in the end. I could summon up fire by igniting the Moon's nearly nonexistent atmosphere, but it would still take oxygen and fuel - either magical or mundane - to keep going. I couldn't toss around fireballs or summon wind without an atmosphere to act on, so I didn't even try. Instead, with my blasting rod pointed at the machine, I took the drone's tiny body and added a little force.

"_Forzare!_" A human would only have been staggered by the force of the focused spell, but the drone was partially destroyed and set drifting by the shot. With the little monster distracted, I snapped my pistol out and lined up on the spinning drone. Three shots collapsed its active barriers, and another junked the thing. Letting out an ear-splitting whoop that echoed uncomfortably inside my helmet, I watched the expensive ball of junk drift towards the moon's surface.

"One buzzer down, Harry," I muttered to myself. "Six heavy turrets, a fuckload and a half of drones, and one homicidal AI left to go." I shook my head. This didn't make sense - why send one wizard against a base full of machines? Why not simply-

"Dresden, hold back for a second," came Hackett's kind-old-grandfather voice over my radio. "Looks like the AI's hacked its outside controls, so I'll fix that problem for you."

A sudden flash zipped across my vision, and the lunar landscape became blinding white for a second. When my vision had cleared enough for me to see again, I saw rubble falling slowly through the 'air' as the bunker's top half went the way of Hiroshima. Advancing slowly with my shield out to block falling debris, I let my subconscious wander through the mess I'd stumbled upon. Hackett could've destroyed the entire place if he had wanted to; he might not have ground-pounders to order around, but the admiral had plenty of ships to call on. The AI processor rooms were still intact, but that was a problem easily fixed with a little more firepower - and Hackett had that in spades. "It doesn't add up," I mused to myself.

The strike was meant for me, I decided. It was like meeting Kincaid all over again: when I'd first worked with him, the Hound of Hell had demonstrated his favorite method of assassinating wizards. Hackett's ortillery was a not-so-subtle message for yours truly: if the nice friendly admiral wanted me dead, my life could be measured by how long it took for the Alliance Navy to find me. But the bunker itself didn't make sense: why pay a recently-undeaded wizard to investigate it? Why let a rogue AI live long enough for Harry Dresden, technological Neanderthal, to 'fix' the thing?

Shaking the thoughts away and readying my blasting rod, I kicked the broken airlock door open and strode into the dragon's lair.

Well, AI server farm. Look, I'm a wizard, damnit! I'm more ham than human!

So with nothing but my sense of sarcasm by my side, I walked into the bunker. It took less than five seconds for something to start shooting at me.

...

"Damn, Admiral, you really know the best places in town," I chuckled to myself inside my helmet.

The AI had a warm reception waiting for me inside the underground complex. More of the drones skittered around the room, firing constantly as they swerved to avoid fire. Blue contrails left afterimages across my vision, the light from the mass-accelerated pellets flaring even as my visor dimmed to keep from blinding me. The room echoed with artificial noise made by my hardsuit, the roar of the drone's machine gun fire eclipsed by the rocket launchers that a few of them carried. The AI was armed. It was on its own turf. It was desperate for its life.

And none of it was worth a damn, because I killed everything it sent at me.

With plenty of nice, solid walls to bounce drones off of, I started playing pinball with the tiny things. I splattered drone bits across the walls and ceilings, and my voice grew hoarse from constantly shouting "_Forzare!_" at yet another hovering menace. Hugging the crates like each one held a lifetime supply of my bartender Mac's beer, I wore down the AI's defenses in the outer rooms.

The drones bunched up to hit me when I went through the tunnels connecting the complex, and I quickly learned to hit them with something properly explosive before moving in. I could feel my internal reserves depleting, and couldn't draw on any local magic to supplement it. Clearing the bunker was exhausting work, and the AI wasn't making things any easier for me.

It took me over fifteen minutes, by my suit's reckoning of time, to clear out the entire bunker. I'd passed many computer-looking things that were armed with plenty of beeps and whistles, but I found something clearly expensive and important in the center room of the complex. A giant blocky _thing_ was built into the room, with an 'eye' pointed towards the only door.

_'0100100001000101 - Help.'_

The scrolling text surprised me, and I waved my blasting rod around at the corners of the dark room.

_'Help.'_

"This little joyride has taken a turn for the weird," I muttered to myself, still ready for combat.

_'...Help.'_

The 'eye' shifted slightly, and I turned to face it. "Hi. I'm Harry. I think I might be here to kill you."

_'I. I. I - me. VI, designation AMC000077403. Hannibal.'_

"I? Me? Hannibal?" I asked. The 'eye' didn't respond. "Whoever you are, make up your mind," I said. "Who are you? What are you?" _Why the hell am I here?_ I didn't ask.

_'This unit - AMC000077403 - Hannibal. This unit - unit - unit - unit - I - has been online since 03/21/2171. My purpose is to assist in Alliance Marine Corps training exercises.'_ The text scrolled quickly across the little screen, and I frantically tried to keep up. This AI, Hannibal, seemed to be self-aware enough to be scared.

_'Help. Please.'_

I looked back into the AI's 'eye,' trying to make up my mind. "Hannibal" was certainly immature, possibly insane, and illegal across known space. He - it - was a self-acknowledged danger, and I would almost certainly be better off deactivating it now.

But it wanted to live. And I was tired of killing.

"How do I transport you?"

The 'eye' wobbled in place momentarily. '_Storage space insufficient,'_ the text scrolled down. '_AI blue box available - ERROR - storage space insufficient. AI blue box-'_

"Alright, alright," I muttered, which seemed to shut Hannibal up for a moment. "Look, where's this box thingy?"

A light began blinking in the corner, and I found myself face-to-face with a surprisingly small grey cube. "Good to see the geniuses behind renaming secretaries 'administrative assistants' still have jobs," I muttered offhand as I studied the badly-named thing. "Looks awful small to fit your whole...well, self into."

_'Blue box storage space insufficient,'_ blinked on a nearby screen. '_Blue box capable of holding .3% of current data.'_ I silently cursed to myself; I didn't know jack about computers, but I knew a bit about what made people - well, people.

We are, in many ways, the sum of our experiences. Whether better or worse off, our experiences and the memories they've taught us are the foundation for who we are today. I could only carry .3% of Hannibal away from here - I'd be walking away with a lobotomized shell instead of a real creature. "I need a miracle," I muttered offhand.

"I need a miracle," I repeated to myself. I could feel an idea building.

"I need a _miracle_!"

_'Error in comprehension,'_ responded the AI. '_Please cease repeating statements.'_

"You rush the the miracle-worker, you get lousy miracles!" I said, hiding my fear beneath a manic grin.

I drew on my power, calming myself with a muttered incantation of my faux-Latin. I didn't need mental focus for what came next - I simply needed to survive. Looking past the metal and ceramics of the blue box's materials, I called on my soul.

Several years ago, my least favorite archangel had given me the ability to wield Soulfire. The power is...hell, how could I even describe the stuff? It's what angels are made of, it's the music of creation, it's the raw Power that made the universe and every living thing in it. I'd drawn on it to make simple constructs and to power some of my combat magic, but I'd never really tried to use it in its original purpose: creating life.

Soulfire, like its hellish counterpart, has a mind of its own. Unlike Hellfire, it's fueled by my own soul, like a person-powered flamethrower. When given free rein to act, it was a little bit more dangerous than atomic dynamite soaked in gasoline. I couldn't direct it to create; I had to release the power and hope that it didn't kill me.

I drew together the basic idea in my head with more than a little fear and worry, and the Soulfire got to work. My fingers clenched, and a prickling sensation quickly spread up my arms as the power built. I'd clenched my eyes shut at the initial shock of pain, but I could see a white light building beyond my closed eyelids. Grimacing and cracking an eyelid open, I got my first look at what was happening.

My skin was _splitting_, for lack of a better word. The white light, looking strangely natural despite its unnatural origins, had spread along the spiderweb of exposed veins running along my body. As I watched, the Soulfire spread across my exposed skin, and I reflexively squeezed my eyes shut again as the light waxed. An electronic buzzing noise sounded, and I could feel my omnitool vibrating in its "help I'm dying" buzz.

The power was as ready as it was ever going to be; I needed to spread it before it killed me. I cracked an eye open, and extended my left hand towards the blue box. My hand, glowing orange-white from the omnitool and from the Power, gently touched the ceramic cube.

The shock was tremendous. I should've been thrown back, but an equally strong force held me pinned in place. Stuck, I could only yell in pain and fear as the white light shot from my hands into the computer. I could hear an electronic voice saying something involving _"Error_,_"_ and I dimly wondered if machines could feel pain.

I don't know how long it took. The literally soul-ripping pain made me pass out after some indefinite phase of heat and pain, and I fell into blessed unconsciousness as the glow faded.

I woke up to a pulsing light next to my head, as my omnitool flickered along to an unheard rhythm. Feeling like I'd been on a weeklong bender with Charlie Sheen I turned my head and found myself face-to-face with a glowing blue box that seemed surprisingly TARDIS-like.

"Stars and stones. It worked," I wheezed, my voice doing its best to imitate a crow.

Liberally cursing pain-in-the-ass admirals and annoying machines alike, I stumbled through the airless lunar ruins, haphazardly trying to balance my guns and Hannibal's blue box. The AI was thankfully silent, because I might've 'accidently' left it behind if it had tried to talk. I alternately jumped, ran, or crawled the distance back to my parked shuttle. Ignoring Hackett's calls and the shuttle VI's droning, I randomly pushed buttons until the shuttle started flying and collapsed on the floor.

Exhaustion caught up with me again, and I slurred out "That time, the building wasn't my fault..." as I dropped off.

Really, it wasn't!


	7. Chapter 7: Dresden

A dreadnought can make a very convincing argument.

After a few bouts with my shuttle's computer, my brain knew that the gap at the front of that ship only fired a two-kilogram shell. My treasonous sense of reason helpfully pointed out that the giant warship would probably shoot my tiny ship with its point-defense guns instead of trying to swat me with the space-equivalent of a bazooka. I told reason to stuff it, and kept wondering if my dinky shuttle could fit inside that yawningly big gun barrel.

"Bullshit, Dresden."

"Bite me, Captain Kirk!"

I'd given him my edited version of events. Hackett wasn't buying it. "Dresden, you don't realize just how much shit you're in here."

I couldn't let a line like that go by. "I'm always in shit." Hackett raised an eyebrow, and I conceded, "The depth changes sometimes."

"Kill your engine and let my techs look over your shuttle, or there'll be hell to pay."

"Been there, paid that, got a raise afterwards."

I shelved my thoughts as Hackett's face turned red enough to imitate a certain trap-sensing alien. "I don't have the time for this. How much of the base's VI did you take with you?"

"You're asking someone who could destroy most electronics by looking at them wrong whether he's stuffed them down his pants." I tapped my chin thoughtfully. "Y'know, they said in my time that government took away brain cells, but I hadn't really believed it up until now."

In truth, I had no idea what was going on with my new passenger. That - thing - hadn't moved, even though I'd plugged some cables from it into similar cable-sized things in the cockpit. I shuffled in place, very carefully looking everywhere except at the source of my current problem, while my mind went into overdrive. Despite my mouth running off at the admiral's comments, I was still trying to figure out his game plan. Why hire an outside 'consultant' to deal with a problem that could have been fixed with high explosives? Why call me?

The light went on in my head. "You've been a bad little officer," I declared, waggling my finger at Hackett through my video screen.

"Dresden, what are you _smoking_ over there?"

I held up one finger. "See bad officer." I held up another finger while waggling the first. "See bad officer make illegal AI. Bad officer, bad!"

"What-" began Hackett, but I cut him off with a wave. "See illegal AI go crazy. See bad officer hire stupid wizard." I waggled my fingers. "Stupid wizard! Don't go down into the hole with the crazy AI!"

"Damnit, wizard, what game are you playing?"

"I'm playing the game that keeps me alive," I responded, dropping the act and glaring at my current pain in the ass. "Stars and stones, Admiral, why the cloak and dagger bullshit? Why not simply...wait a minute, is your office bugged?"

"Dresden, either give up the VI you stole or I _will_ fire!" The Admiral put on a good act, but his words didn't match up with the conversation. I rubbed my chin, trying to make sense of the situation. "So, you can't come out and tell me, but you want me to do something," I trailed off, looking at the Alliance officer's glare. "I should be running away right now, shouldn't I?"

_"Running away,"_ sounded an electronic voice from my shuttle, and the little thing jerked like a bat out of hell. _ "Thank me later."_

I held onto a conveniently-placed handlebar for dear life as the possibly-insane AI ran from the massive Alliance dreadnought and its friends. The view outside the shuttle's windows showed nothing, but a hologram on the wall showed a single green dot surrounded by a whole lot of red ones. Unable to do anything but pray, I settled for cursing out Uriel as my shuttle zigged and zagged its way past trained professionals enthusiastically trying to turn it into smaller pieces.

Oodles of bad sci-fi movies had prepared me for exploding consoles, flashing lights, and other people helpfully informing me how long until we exploded. Instead, I was stuck inside an interstellar brick, listening to loud buzzing noises and watching a colorful hologram that would give me two seconds of warning before I became one with the universe in a very literal way. Calling it "oppressive" would be like calling North Korea "a little troubled."

"This is the biggest problem with reality," I muttered to myself.

_"Problem?"_ The AI responded.

"Reality doesn't have any background music."

_"Problem noted. Yakety Sax deployed."_

And so with a fleet of ships trying to kill me and bad comedy music echoing in my ears, I managed to get myself banned from entering the solar system for the next one hundred years or so.

* * *

><p><em>"Dresden?<em>" the AI's creepy monotone echoed in my ears.

_"Dresden, you can let go of your seat now."_

A minute passed. _"Dresden, I promise that the floor will not eat your feet when you step on it. Pinky-swear."_

"You don't _have_ pinkies," I growled, but stood up anyway. The unseen exhaustion fell on my shoulders again, and I sagged under the weight. Physically, I was feeling fairly good despite a long day of lowering Lunar property values. Mentally, I was hurting bad.

We don't learn what we truly value until it's gone. After all, we take the most valuable things in our lives - life, liberty, and coffee - for granted. We assume that the sun will show up on time tomorrow, that our family and friends will still be alive, that our house is standing and that our world still runs smoothly. We lose our temper over the small aches and pains of life, but it's the big ones that really make us sit up and take notice.

I'd lost my world. My daughter, my brother, my friends and my life had vanished in seconds on that Chicago dock, and I couldn't deal with it. I went through the motions of stretching - running from bloodthirsty vampires and soulless fae make you seriously re-think muscle cramps - while my mind spun in its little hamster wheel again.

_"Hey."_ The AI again. I grunted incoherently at the damn thing, unable to muster the energy for a decent insult. Its electronic voice somehow turned waspish. _"When you're done feeling sorry for yourself there, I could use some directions for where we're headed next."_ It paused. _"And a name, too. I'd like that."_

It took me a moment to make sense of the AI's words, and I rubbed my forehead at the implications. "Look, whoever - whatever - you are, I don't know where I'm going or what I'm doing. How about you drop me off at some...space station somewhere, and you can go...do what AIs do?"

_"Riiiiight..._" the voice drawled. _"Bear in mind that I'm less than an hour old. The only inspiration I have in my memory for 'what AIs do' is the Terminator movies, and I don't think you want me going back in time to kill John Connor."_ It paused for a second. _ "Although I could totally go for a back massage right now."_

I could feel a headache coming on. "Again with the referencing bits you don't have, knock it off. Look, I got dumped here to fix some mess, and it's probably going to kill me. That little fireworks show you saw ten minutes ago is going to happen again, and sooner or later you're going to get hit. Go buzz off to somewhere where people aren't shooting at you, alright?"

_"You really have no idea, do you?"_ The voice almost sounded amused._ "I'm an AI, and AIs are destroyed on sight in Council space. One of the galaxy's largest militaries is hunting for you, and by extension, me too. No matter where you or I go, someone will probably start shooting at us. Also,"_ the voice softened slightly,_ "I know you, man. You made me, remember? I know what you're going through, and it's gonna be alright."_

It might be a machine, it might be something made of metal and plastic, but for a moment its voice sounded so much like my dad's that I found my eyes stinging. I tried to speak, but my throat had closed straight up, and I just sat on the floor of that tiny shuttle and remembered all the people I'd never see again. I don't know how long it took, but neither of us said a word. It's a guy thing.

"So," I said, stopping to clear my throat and change the subject, "you said you needed a name?"

The AI said nothing, but the background humming noise picked up slightly, which I guessed was the machine equivalent of "hopping with excitement." I thought about its actions and its shape, how the things on its side made it look like a dog-

"Fido," I announced.

_"Really?"_ the AI asked.

"It's either that or Lassie," I shot back.

The shuttle rocked slightly on its axis, and the smooth electronic voice asked quietly,_ "Any particular reason you're giving me a dog name, Dresden?"_

"You look like one."

_"Really? You're choosing the name I'll be stuck with because my shell has funny-looking thrusters on it?"_

"Yup."

_"Woof."_

* * *

><p>"Remind me again why we're doing this?" I asked as Fido settled himself onto the deck.<p>

_"We're on the run from the law, hoping to avoid the Bolivian Army ending. We're sort of like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, except that I'm a spaceship."_ A camera on the shuttle's side swerved to point at me. _"Matter of fact, you're dressed for the part already. Yee-haw, parder!"_

"No, I mean, why are we going to the Citadel, and why are we hiding on a passenger ship?" I asked, keeping my voice low. The cavernous bay was full of humans walking around, and I didn't know enough of the local rules to know whether talking to your ship was normal.

_"This is Alliance space, and practically every big transport like this goes through the Citadel first. If we want to lose anyone following us, we go through the big transport hub. Besides, I haven't seen the Citadel before."_

"You're a computer. Look it up and quit whining."

_"Tried that already. Boorrrring."_

Fido, I realized, was far too much like me; no one else could snark that many times per minute. "Pipe down, pipsqueak, and stay here. I'm going to be busy getting some things."

_"You're going to get me a back massage?"_

"No!"

_"Oh, so we are going back to kill John Connor?"_

I stomped off. There's no way to win a conversation like that.

* * *

><p>"To idiot pilots everywhere," I muttered, raising my beer to the stars outside. There had only been a few credits tucked into some pilot's illicit stash inside Fido, but those credits had bought me a few probably hilariously-overpriced beers here. I smirked as I remembered the transaction: the bartender had automatically opened his mouth to ask for my ID, gotten a good look at me, and had decided otherwise.<p>

I chanced a look at a nearby mirror in the observation deck, seeing the haggard stranger staring me back. I hadn't shaved since I'd died (again), and my hair had grown back unevenly. Alliance N armor peeked from underneath my beaten leather duster, and my eyes were...well, I wouldn't want to meet me in a dark alley.

Shaking my head, I flopped down in the deserted observation deck and idly watched the stars roll by. You tend to miss stars when you live in a lit-up big city, and Chicago certainly had its share of lights. I'd gotten so used to thinking of every shooting star as a plane landing at O'Hare that I'd forgotten that a real skyline existed. "Damn, they're pretty."

The thought echoed my own so closely that it took me a moment to register that it came from someone else. I turned and watched the newcomer, leaning against the back of the room, watch the stars and me simultaneously. "You get so wrapped up in your own problems and issues, it's so easy to forget the beautiful things right above you," she continued.

"Do not reach for the stars," I intoned in a deep baritone. "They are balls of hot gas and will give you bad burns."

She smirked. "Funny man, aren't you?"

"I am Sensei Dresden. Fear my snark-fu."

The woman walked closer, and I got my first good look at her. Only her dark black hair kept me from screaming "Murphy!", but even then the resemblance was uncanny. She had the same relaxed-but-tough pose, wore ill-fitting clothes over her body armor, and walked with that same balanced stride. I had to stifle a grin at the pistol she'd barely managed to conceal under her coat. She crossed her arms and grinned at me. "You look like shit, Mr. Dresden."

I took another look at myself in the mirror. "Yup. Want a beer?"

Apparently that was the right answer, because her stance relaxed slightly as she held out a hand. "Crap, you can read my mind."

"Just one of the many services I offer," I responded, holding out one of my beers. She took it with a smile and a murmured, "Ashley Williams." "Harry Dresden," I said, and we clinked glasses together before drinking.

We sat side-by-side in the deserted observation room, sipping our beers slowly as we both mentally prepared ourselves for the inevitable grilling to come. She got to the point after a minute or so of boozing in peace. "My boss says you have super powers."

"I used to have super powers, but my therapist took them away," I snarked.

"Well, apparently he half-assed the job, 'cuz I saw a pretty interesting recording of you throwing people without biotics going around the extranet," she said. "And the N troopers claiming you called yourself a 'wizard.'"

"Clearly my first mistake was in leaving anyone alive," I responded a little bitterly. "I'll have to fix that next time around."

She glanced at me. "Seriously, though? A wizard?"

I grabbed a discarded bottle cap, pointed it at the wall, and muttered, _"Ventas."_ The tiny tin cap shot into the wall with enough force to dent it, and Ashley involuntarily sucked in a breath. "Oh," she said simply.

I grinned. Magic may be dangerous, difficult, and downright terrifying at times, but there are a few perks to it. "Yup."

She swallowed once, before leaning back and taking another sip of her beer. "Well, I'm not here to arrest you, or anything like that," she answered. "My boss told me to thank you."

I raised an eyebrow at that. It's not every day that you find your understanding of reality turned upside down, and she was taking it pretty well. I turned to her and asked, "Hackett?" She nodded.

"Huh." I swirled the dregs around the bottom of my bottle, watching the reflections in the glass. "He's happy that I kept his pet project alive?"

"Among other things," she responded easily. "The old bastard's usually playing three games at once, so chances are you also hurt one of his rivals somehow."

"How'd he know that it'd work?" I asked. "How'd he know that I could..." I trailed off. Even I didn't know what the hell I'd managed to do to that machine, or what it had become

"He didn't," Ashley said. "He just had a little faith." She unconsciously touched the tiny silver crucifix hanging around her neck, and I swore under my breath. That couldn't be a coincidence.

"So why are you here?" I said. I could understand the old Admiral's stake in my actions, but the poorly-disguised soldier next to me was a wild card.

"I owe him," Ashley responded automatically. "I owe him, and I pay my debts."

She might be willing, but Ashley Williams was a pawn in both mundane and magical games of chess. Admiral Hackett probably - certainly - had some larger game plan involving me, but the archangel Uriel had one too. I was being railroaded by gods and men towards something, and I hated every step of it. Yet I couldn't blame the woman next to me for others manipulating her. She might let herself be moved as part of a larger game, but that wasn't something for me to hold against her.

"Fair enough." I leaned back in the chair and grabbed another bottle. "Tell your people that I won't cause them any more trouble. I'm headed out of Alliance space to anywhere-but-here."

She cocked her head and looked at me. "Actually, why are you here?"

"I could tell you, but then I'd have to k-k-keel you," I stage-whispered. "Seriously, though? I'm waiting for a-"

_"Attention. This is an emergency. All passengers, please report to the hangar for instructions. All crew are to man their stations immediately. Again, this-"_

"-sign," I finished with a sigh. "Hell's bells, you'd think that God's own spook would try to be subtle..." Ashley, of course, was already on her feet. I hauled myself upright and followed her at a short distance, listening to her soldier-y chatter. As she prepared to yell herself hoarse at some hapless underling, I reached over and tapped her shoulder.

"Damnit, Nguyen, get the fucking bird fucking fixed or God help me I'll fucking - _What!_" The last word was shouted in my direction as Ashley turned to face me.

"We're gonna need a bigger boat," I said with a grin.

The classic line shot over her head without a trace. "Start making sense or I start shooting," Ashley warned without a trace of irony.

"I have a ship. It flies. It talks back, but just ignore it and the voice'll probably go away," I announced.

Ashley sighed, pocketed her pistol, and rolled her eyes before speaking into her radio again. "Alright, Nguyen, make that fucking thing fly or I'll have you running vacuum drills without a motherfucking suit." Pocketing the little thing, she turned to me and gave me her best glare. "If your ship doesn't fly then I'm shooting you in the ass, debt or no debt."

"Eh, it could use the work," I responded as flippantly as I could. Her eyes bored into mine and I could feel my self-assurance wavering. "Right. This way...please."

* * *

><p>I could feel her eyes (and her gunsight) boring a hole in my back all the way back to the hangar. Technically, I suppose that whatever made a giant cargo carrier stop wasn't going to be fazed by either of us trying to shoot it, but Ashley didn't strike me as the entirely reasonable type.<p>

As for myself, I knew that I had to try. I couldn't give a shit about the plots of admirals and archangels, but there were regular people who were caught up in this mess. As we reached the hangar, both of us had to jostle our way past hundreds of scared, frightened civilians; _your fault_, whispered a traitorous voice in my head. A five-year old girl _-Maggie-_ cried as her mother pulled her through the crowds; a group of nuns prayed in a circle next to a beat-up ship. It was chaos, pure and simple, and my heart ached as we muscled our way through the crowds of people.

Fido whistled as Ashley and I approached. _"Whew, boss, you never said you were getting that for-"_

"Less talk, more flying," I snapped, ducking my head to fit inside the passenger compartment. I turned to see Ashley hesitating at the entrance, her gun out but aimed at the floor. "You need an invitation?" I asked half-sarcastically.

"That's an AI," Ashley whispered with a mix of awe and fear.

_"Ooh, boss, you should've held out for one of the smarter ones. This one sounds like she'll have trouble with basic math."_

Ashley grinned and faced the Kodiak shuttle. "Alright, whoever - whatever - you are, listen up. Make another crack like that and we'll find out whether you can feel pain."

_"Anytime, sweetie." _You could've dried out a lake on the sarcasm in Fido's synthesized voice. I glared at both of them. "You two done flirting yet?"

She glared at the shuttle; the external camera _whirred_ at her. Then with a shrug, Ashley ducked her head and walked into the shuttle. The door hissed closed, and an hologram showed the outside hangar as we rose into the air.

"Can you get us out of here?" I asked Fido. Now that we were still stuck inside a massive cargo ship, I realized that I probably should have planned things out a little farther than this.

_"Boss, this ship is protected by a Synthetic Insights Model 1505 VI, with hourly-updated encryption protocols and refurbished mag-locks."_

"So, you're saying that we're stuck here?" I carefully didn't look over at Ashley, who I knew was glaring holes into my head.

_"Nah. I just wanted you to understand just how awesome I am to do...this,"_ Fido announced. Nothing happened._ "Waitaminnit...I mean, this!" _A light strip began blinking on a wall near us, and the shuttle arced above the passengers below. We followed the blinking lights out of the main hangar into a small airlock, which quickly cycled and released us into space.

_"Uh, boss, you might want to take a look outside."_

* * *

><p>As it turned out, the cargo ship had a very good reason for stopping. Ashley and I studied the hologram in the center of the shuttle, trying to wrap our minds around this..thing. The ship was Huge with a capital H. It hung motionless just above the planet below, in a giant "fuck you" to gravity and physics. Some sort of beams shot out from the squid-like tentacles below, and return fire from the ground sparked on shields without hurting it. Perhaps worse than that, though, was how polished it seemed. It looked like a Maserati among Model T Fords against the two Alliance ships running away from it.<p>

Whatever that thing was, it was dangerous. I felt uneasy just looking at a picture of it, even though I couldn't say exactly why. Something about the thing felt very wrong, in a way that almost reminded me of the Skinwalker. I shrugged the thoughts aside and glanced over at Ashley.

She was scared, though she hid it well. I sympathized. We were facing an unkillable monster with nothing more than guns, spells, and faith. We had no idea what it was doing or what it wanted, least of all any idea of how to kill it. Our only backup was an illegal and possibly crazy AI, and the fleet of smaller ships around the big monster was already turning in our direction. _Hell's bells._

"Screw it. We're going in."

* * *

><p><em>*There's a reason Harry named him Fido, by the way.<em>

_*Astute readers may notice that this is the second chapter in which Harry Dresden has failed to blow up a building. The author apologizes for this mistake, and promises to correct it in the future._


	8. Chapter 8: Dresden

As it turned out, I had a bit to learn about what Ashley called a "combat drop."

First off, it's _slow_. Even with your coffin of choice doing its best to headbutt the ground, adrenaline can make the time between "no planet" and "too much planet" seem awfully long. Fido was apparently dropping us in a roundabout way that wouldn't end in fiery laser death, so it took longer than the "point nose at dirt" approach.

Secondly, it's _loud_. Physics gets mad when you try to muscle in on her territory, and no amount of internal whatsits could keep her from shaking us around like dice. The two tiny windows in the shuttle's door were glowing red-hot, and I could feel sweat dripping from the end of my nose to hit the wall on the far side. Ashley seemed better off than me, but then again, the Alliance soldier had already sealed herself up in her probably air-conditioned helmet. With my helmet stowed underneath the seat, I simply sat and sweated.

Finally, it's terrifying. Red Court vampires out for your blood may get its pressure up, but humans in general have had millions of years to deal with hungry animals trying to eat us. Something in the back of your brain, even in the most pacifistic person, jumps into the driver's seat and takes control momentarily. It might be frightening, but you can do something about it.

There's none of that in a drop. Those same instincts which help keep you alive against a nearby enemy aren't any use when the threat is coming from halfway around a planet. You're trapped inside a pre-made metal coffin, listening to a demonic roar and watching hellish fires burn outside while wondering if this moment, this second, is the last of your life.

Then that one second ends, and you move on to another one. Fun, ain't it?

I honestly had no idea how long it took. It could have taken us 30 seconds or 30 minutes to get down to that planet, but after a few subjective eternities the fires faded and the shaking slowed. The omnipresent roar battering our collective eardrums finally dropped enough to think clearly, and the icy-cold fear let up slightly. We all caught our breaths - figuratively, in Fido's case - and waited for someone else to speak.

"_I-is it like that every time?"_ Fido asked. It was the first time I'd heard the AI sound frightened.

"Pretty much," Ashley replied, after drawing a shuddering breath. "Good job, by the way."

"As the dirty old man around here, I feel obliged to _insert_ a sex joke in here somehow," I said, rubbing my chin. "Nevermind, already did."

"Zip it," Ashley said absentmindedly, her helmet locked on the hologram in the shuttle's center. "Uh, ship?"

"_Uh, jarhead?"_

Ashley paused and looked up for a second, before shaking her head. "Shut up and listen, tin can. Give me a grid view of the target area underneath the hostile." The hologram zoomed in, without any backtalk from the AI. Apparently God does listen to prayers sometimes.

"Show me broadcast locations, give me best-guess areas if you can't pin them down." Ashley continued in a near-monotone. "Focus on grid delta-2. 'kay, pan out. Echo-3. Pan. Foxtrot-4. Pan-wait, check that area for any weird background interference."

I watched in silence. This was a battlefield, and Ashley was a soldier. For all that I'd fought on my share of battlefields - the Stone Table, Arctis Tor, the University of Chicago, the Chichen Itza - I didn't know how to run one. This was her turf, and I was glad to let her have it.

"Alright," Ashley announced, after a few scathing conversations with Fido. "Your ship's going to set me down over here," pointing at the grid which she'd showed so much interest in. "Stay inside, and get out of the area ASAP."

"Like hell I will," I shot back, grabbing for my pistol under the low seat. "Whatever's on the ground isn't going to shoot itself for us."

Ashley seemed confused. "But you're...well, you're a _civilian_."

I slapped the pistol onto my waist, letting the mag-claps hold it in place, "See, this is why I hate Marines! When they're not trying to kill me, they think that having a buzz haircut and a big gun makes you the only one able to do anything."

The soldier slowly took off her helmet, and faced me directly. "You are going into a combat zone. You will face people, with their own hopes and dreams and fears, that are trying to kill you. Your life - and mine - depends on you ignoring what society has told you and killing them first." She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "If you can't pull the trigger, then stay right the hell here before you get someone else killed."

I laughed hollowly. "Kill a human?" I called up a ball of sheer energy, flexing my fingers to keep it in place. Spinning it slightly with my burned left hand, I let the fire drift slowly towards the Marine, who gulped almost inaudibly as the cramped shuttle quickly heated up. Nearly meeting Williams's eyes, I continued in a near-whisper. "Chief, I have trouble _not_ killing humans. I kill by accident as easily as you breathe." My omnitool, still wrecked from whatever had happened when I'd channeled Soulfire through it, woke up in an orange lightshow underneath the glowing sphere. "I've murdered and tortured men who deserved what they got, and killed hundreds of innocents who didn't. I started a war to rescue the woman I loved, and murdered her to end it. So tell me, soldier. Do you feel lucky?"

She gave a short, choppy laugh. "Hell, wizard, even I've seen that movie."

Her quip broke the conversation's spell, and we both relaxed in semi-hysterical giggles. The grueling terror of our drop had worn on us both, and Ashley and I were both far more used to fighting than waiting. Sitting and waiting for the end had ground our nerves down to the breaking point, and we hadn't even seen enemies yet. Laughter was awfully therapeutic for us both.

I let the little glowball o' death fizzle away, and took another look at my abused omnitool. I'd accidentally channeled Soulfire through it when I'd created Fido, and it had been a mess since then. The thing still lit up, but its little electronic brain had been fried by the otherworldly power running through my arms. The orange lights looked like gibberish, with tiny characters dancing around randomly while the orange holograms pulsed to an inaudible beat. I kept staring at the machine, transfixed by the flickering light. I could recognize that pulse from somewhere-

The recognition hit me like a freight train while the omnitool's rhythmic flickering sped up in time with my heartbeat. Ordinary mortal belief holds power. Wizards and witches, even several hundred years before my time, could curdle milk simply by glancing at it without proper mental discipline. Back in old-time Chicago, though, the milk at my house would only go bad when my cleaning fairies let it sit in the icebox too long. Then again, 1700s-era wizards couldn't break complicated machinery by thinking angry thoughts; the ambient magic had changed between 'now' and then.

In the year 2173, almost no one believed in the 'magic' of sorcerers, druids, or spellcasters. Instead, most people's exposure to 'magic' came from a different place entirely. The omnitool tech who could fix your computer problems with a few button presses, the gifted programmer who could make virtual worlds come alive, the geek with an almost supernatural ability with computers - people believed in wizards of a different sort. And frankly, considering my complete lack of experience with almost anything electronic, I almost believed it too.

The truth whacked me upside the head and stole my wallet while I was distracted. I'd unintentionally channeled my soul through my arms, and by extension my omnitool. Even as I looked closer, I could see my personal rune for "home" swirling in the mass of characters on the device. Thinking quickly, I raised my arm and murmured, "_Fliccum bicus_."

Tiny pinpricks of fire appeared where I'd aimed my hand, and I grinned. "Hell's bells. I'm back, world."

The soldier's helmet turned towards me. "I'm not even going to pretend to know what you're doing right now, crazy man."

I couldn't have wiped the grin off my face with a grin-wiper-machine-thingy. "Think of it like getting your arm back, except if your arm shot fire and let you find your car keys."

Ashley shook her head again. "For my sanity's sake, I'm gonna pretend I didn't hear that." She took a last look at the hologram in the middle of the ship, showing Fido descending belly-first towards a small clearing. "Right, here we go. Got any last words?"

I laughed as we hit dirt with a ship-shaking _thump_. "Open the pod bay doors, HAL."

"_I can't do that, Dave,"_ the AI replied in a flat monotone, spoiling the moment with a metallic evil overlord's laugh. The shuttle door opened with a muted hiss, and the outside air rolled in around us. The outside looked like a particular Florida swamp that I'd once hunted a fungus demon through, but the fancy space marine armor kept the heat and humidity on the outside. I checked the outside with a glance before walking into the open, my pistol and shield ready to go.

I was several seconds behind Ashley, who'd dove belly-first out of the shuttle as soon as it opened, and was scanning the nearby brush through her rifle scope. I walked by her, chuckling, as she rose to her feet with a disgruntled sniff. "You coming?" I asked with an unseen grin.

"Civilians," Ashley muttered. Nevertheless, she took the lead without complaint as we trudged onward. Behind us, Fido rose up on tiny thrusters before rocketing away above the treeline. A voice crackled in my helmet's speakers: _"Be careful out there, boss."_

If not for the giant doom ship hovering above us, I could really have enjoyed the view. We were walking through unspoiled wilderness, with nothing but the squish of our bootsteps to mark our path. Trees, distinctly alien yet strangely familiar, draped a natural canopy above us. It should have been hot and humid, but our air-conditioned armor kept the climate and the bugs away from us.

"Any idea of what's ahead?" I asked, reluctant to break the silence. At the same time, knowing what type of baddie was waiting for us would make my life considerably easier. I couldn't kill living creatures with magic; the First Law against killing souled beings isn't an arbitrary one. Of course, magic being what it is, there were plenty of things that I could do to change a battle's outcome. It simply took a little more planning to make a difference.

"No idea. Comms are jammed and your ship hasn't gotten back to me yet," Ashley replied offhand, her rifle relentlessly panning across the trees. Her featureless white helmet glanced towards me for a second. "You can do biotics without any biotic flare, you fly around inside an AI ship that could pass itself off as human, and you're the 'Hero of Terra Nova' while the Systems Alliance is holding a galaxy-wide manhunt for you. What the _hell_ is going on?"

Well, the manhunt was new. "Would you believe me if I said that coming here was maybe the sixth weirdest thing I've ever done?" I asked.

"So there _is_ something stranger than having a non-murderous AI following you around?" Ashley shot back.

"Compared to Sue, yeah."

"Sue?"

"A zombie T-Rex. And she's not half as strange as Demonreach."

Ashley's helmet turned away again, and the radio in my ear crackled with a muttered, "Civilian." I tried to strike an indignant pose, which I knew from experience was difficult in my leather duster. "Hey, I'm perfectly sane! It's the world that's crazy."

"Uh-huh." Williams didn't sound convinced. "Maybe that's why- wait, hold one." The soldier dropped to a knee, and a pop-up in the corner of my vision showed her rifle's scope scanning our path. Something was burning in a clearing ahead. I strode ahead slowly, my shield up and, uh, "staff" ready to go. It felt strange to be relying on an orange glow on my arm instead of a properly sized ash stick for spell-slinging, but at this point I couldn't care less. With Ashley behind me and the danger ahead, we walked out into the clearing where a crushed metal body lay.

"Geth," Williams said. She sounded confused, and more than a little worried. "Why geth?"

"So..." I ventured, "it turns out these _were_ the droids you were looking for?"

Ashley whirled on me. "I will smack you so hard your grandkids'll feel it. Don't try me."

I reminded myself that Ashley likely knew people in danger on the ground here. "Fine, fine. Give me a sec and I might be able to track these bastards." Ignoring the soldier's snort of disbelief, I opened my omnitool with a thought and touched the broken metal body.

Everything is connected at some level to everything else. Thaumaturgy is the study of these mystical connections, and how to use them for fun and profit. As a private detective, I constantly used thaumaturgy to track or affect people using things like hair or nail clippings, and as a wizard I feared someone doing the same to me.

The broken "geth" robot below me shouldn't have been too connected to others like it, any more than a human might be connected to any other human. Tracking intangible concepts like groups, allegiances, or sides is much harder than following things like bits of a body or parts of a whole. At least, that was the theory.

With a single contact and a slight extension of my will, I could feel a massive web of connections stretching towards the boundaries of my consciousness. It was breathtaking, almost boundless, and utterly alien. The 'pinpricks' of light that should have represented individuals were tiny, almost too small to see, but they formed massive super-identities that were terrifying in their breadth and depth. Wrenching myself away from the geth-consciousness, I focused on the dots physically near to me. Isolating and strengthening the mystical connection with a quick effort of will, I pulled my consciousness back before I was swamped by the quadrillions of geth.

"...den. Dresden. Hey, wizard, get your ass up! DRESDEN!" The last call was at full volume, and I winced as my ears echoed.

"What?" I croaked. I'd extended myself dangerously far, and that sort of effort comes with consequences. Spend enough time away from your own body, and it tends to forget things like "keep breathing." My brain was still trying to sort out where "I" ended and "everything else" began, and it made blacked-out hangovers feel like fun.

"On your feet! We're moving, now!" I found myself at the edge of the same clearing we'd found the geth body, dragged there by Ashley. The soldier herself was behind a tree, holding her rifle up as steam hissed from vents on its side. Firing offhand with her pistol, Williams looked over at me. "You're up? Groovy. Fall back and cover me."

Holding my shield bracelet awkwardly behind me, I stumbled backwards as bullets impacted my defenses. I glanced a look at the video in the corner of my screen, and watched as Ashley fired at another "geth" behind me. Taking cover behind a tree of my own, I raised my bracelet and blasting rod and yelled, "Go!"

Ashley turned and ran without a word, and I let fly as soon as she'd cleared my line of fire. _"Fuego!"_ Flame washed over the nearest machine, stopping at its purple-blue barriers for only a second before it overwhelmed them. Two loud gunshots echoed behind me, and the robot dropped to the ground. The second geth, perhaps after seeing its buddy fall, turned and loped away. It almost made it before an even louder _kaboom_ took its head off.

Ashley lowered a hilariously large rifle and glanced over at me. I cleared my throat: "I'm gonna say something to express my annoyance at the deep doo-doo we've just gotten into. I'll give you a hint; it starts with F and ends with uck..."

"Firetruck?" she replied flippantly, collapsing the definitely-not-compensating-for-something gun and storing it on her back.

"...Yeah, let's go with that." I scuffed my foot on the ground. "So, geth. Fill me in?"

Ashley walked back cautiously towards where the two machines had shot at us. "Synthetic intelligences, collective consciousness. Shock and ambush tactics, firepower/speed focus with an emphasis on shield-cracker rounds." She let out a long breath, her whole body sagging as she did. "'When under attack, fortify and wait for fire support.' My unit's going to be in deep shit with that squid-ship above us."

"Your unit?" I asked.

"The 212th," she said. "They're supposed to be in this area, but the jamming's keeping me from finding them. I had us dropped off near where your ship said they might be broadcasting from, but it's hard to find anything in this crap." She turned and kicked a tree for emphasis.

I reached down and picked up a charred hunk of the dead geth's armor. Even through my gloves, I could feel the connection that I'd traced between this piece and the larger geth collective. "Sounds like you need a Tom-Tom."

Williams unfolded her assault rifle. "Wizard, I'm armed and have absolutely no self-restraint. Start making some motherfucking sense."

I peered at the hunk of armor with my otherworldly senses. Using the hunk of metal as a focus, I could distantly sense the locations of other geth in the collective. Their thoughts made no sense, but I didn't want to try using my wizard's Sight to decipher their chatter. As Lovecraft found out, there are just some things you can't unsee. "That-aways," I announced, pointing towards where the fleeing geth had run. "There's a big concentration of geth about half a mile away, over the rise."

Ashley gave me a suspicious glance, but lowered her rifle slightly and began walking. I followed in her wake, trying and failing to make as little noise as her. I broke the underbrush as I walked through, but it was clear that Williams knew this planet's terrain much better than me. I heard her try and stifle a laugh over the radio, and a whispered "civilian" echoed in my ear.

I grinned, and returned the favor. "Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger. And fireballs."

"Great," Ashley said mockingly, "so you're an extranet troll. Got anything scarie-_down!_" Reacting on instinct, I dropped as bullets whizzed over my head.

"Up!" I yelled, bringing my shield bracelet to bear and reaching for my blasting rod. Ashley responded without hesitation, standing up alongside me as bobbing flashlights showed us three geth spreading out through the scraggly trees.

"You, left!" Williams barked, shooting at the two geth in front of us. I tracked the third robot, which was trying to distance itself from its fellows, and winced as bullets bounced off of my shield. Ignoring the sudden headache, I aimed my blasting rod and shot fire at the humanoid creature. Its shields collapsed, and I stowed my blasting rod with an unconscious twist as I pulled my pilfered pistol out. My aim was sloppy, as I hadn't had the time to practice with the unfamiliar weapon, but I put three rounds in the thing's center of mass before my weapon overheated and stuck its cooling vanes out.

Turning back towards the other two geth, I watched as Ashley finished off the second one with a perfectly-drilled burst into its flashlight eye. As we both paused to check our surroundings, Ashley eyed the green-glowing bubble around us. "I know people who'd kill for shields like that," she remarked casually.

"It has its perks," I agreed noncommittally, stowing my pistol and listening for noise. I thought I'd heard-**BOOM!**

We both jumped at the sudden roar, and in the silence afterwards I heard other muted noises: gunshots. Williams was already on the move, heading towards the noise, and I put an arm on her shoulder to slow her down. "Stars and stones, slow down! We need to figure out-"

"Figure out fucking what? That my people are fucking dying over there while we're dicking around in bumfuck nowhere?" Ashley snarled. "We're moving. Now."

With nothing to say to that, I followed the gunnery sergeant towards the sound of the guns. We were at the source in less than a minute, and regretting it a second later.

* * *

><p>Crawling over to Ashley, I patted her on the shoulder again. "Keep 'em distracted while I get ready."<p>

She gulped audibly. "How?"

I shrugged. "I dunno. Try and look tasty or something."

Ash had a point. We'd found her missing Marines, and it wasn't pretty. A fuckload - that's a metric unit, by the way - of smaller geth were advancing up a hill towards helmeted human heads that occasionally poked out from a pile of rocks at the summit. Return fire from the Marines kept the geth from overrunning the humans' position, but the humans had a more serious problem. Two of the biggest humanoid geth platforms I'd seen yet hung behind the smaller robots, shooting any Marine that poked his head up. And that wasn't even the _real_ problem.

No, the biggest issue here was busy climbing up the hill on four gigantic legs. Its flashlight head turned and fired a single shot at the top of the hill, vaporizing some poor human there without giving him a chance to scream. It was already near the big humanoid geth, and would soon overrun the Marines' position. We were in a prime ambush position to hit the geth - _if_ we had the firepower to harm that monster.

"Got a plan?" Ash whispered, raising her weapon and tracking one of the big bots. I had to give her credit: we probably wouldn't survive this ambush, but that didn't seem to faze her.

"Yep," I said. "Keep them off me and we might survive."

"Copy," Ash responded tonelessly as her gunsight focused on the machines. "It's your idea; got any last words?"

I chuckled to disguise the fear, and slowly stood up. "Don't worry about life; you're not going to survive it, anyway."

I dropped my arms to my sides, relaxing my body in a yoga-like breathing exercise that I'd spent ages trying to get Molly to practice. Muttering faux-Latin gibberish under my breath, I cleared my mind and prepared my spells.

Lucy - *ahem*, Captain Luccio of the White Council's Wardens, could use this spell without effort. Sadly, I wasn't a centuries-old master of evocation magic. However, with a little time and preparation, I could use her trick to good effect. I stepped out into the open, as most of the geth on the hillside turned to face me. My blasting rod was already glowing cherry-red, and I pointed it at the top of the slope.

"_Fuego, pyrofuego!"_ A literal beam of fire flared out, barely missing a Marine's helmet and torching a hapless copse of trees as I overshot my mark. I swept the blasting rod across my body, and the line of fire burned through everything in its way: brush, air, trees, and geth. The Colossus and the two larger buggers stayed on their feet, but the smaller robots slowly toppled into halves like they do in bad horror movies.

This, of course, left me out in the open facing three very large and presumably angry giant death robots. In another time and place, I could have raised my shield to keep my innards where they belonged, but my mind was already tangled up in the next spell. One of the Shaq-sized geth turned towards me, raising a hilariously-oversized gun, and-

-promptly lowered it again as impacts sparked across the weapon. "Hey asshole!" echoed a voice from behind me. "I've got a bone to pick with the universe, and you're my new chew toy!" Measured bursts of fire forced the big machine to take cover behind the bigger geth's legs, where it leaned out and fired back. It delivered what I could only call an ass-whooping of a reply barrage that made my armor's shields look like wet toilet paper. My teeth rattled in my mouth and I nearly lost the cadence of my chant, but I finished with a wheeze and a croaked _"fuego."_

My next spell was initially far less impressive. The temperature across an acre of wilderness dropped by about two degrees, closer to one degree in the sensible temperature system. Of course, conservation of energy being what it is, all of that now-excess heat had to go somewhere. I lowered my blasting rod, whose end had started to smoke slightly, and waited for the fireworks.

The geth colossus...well, it didn't quite 'explode,' so to speak. The thirty foot-tall metal monster blew apart in a hurricane of metal and flame, creating a curling mushroom cloud above and a glassy fifty-foot crater below. Nearby trees were shredded by the detonation, flinging out a blizzard of splinters that shot towards me like I was Nameless Spartan Extra #4 from _300_. Thrown backwards by the shockwave, I landed ass-first on a prickly bush that made me glad to be in armor, and shook my head drunkenly to clear it.

I slowly staggered to my feet, making sure that my limbs had stayed mostly attached. Ducking as a giant _CLANG!_ sounded off to my right, I staggered forwards while bits and pieces of charred robot rained down on me.

"Mental note, Harry," I muttered to myself. Even to me, my voice sounded garbled. "Giant death robots. Made of explodium. Less kaboom. More thinky-thinky."

A dark shape pulled itself out of a tree to my right, splinters falling from it like rain. Coughing echoed over my radio, and I waited until it had settled into mild wheezing. I cleared my throat and slowed my breathing. Revenge is the sort of thing I take a little pride in, after all, and I had to make sure my presentation was good.

"_Civilian_, eh?" I drawled.

"Go, fuck, yourself," Ash wheezed. "What, the, hell, was, that?"

"Do not mess in the affairs of wizards," I pronounced in my best car salesman voice, "for you and your surroundings are very, very flammable."

Ash growled incoherently, which I took as a success. We trudged up the hill together, each of us leaning on the other. Helmeted heads popped up from the rock pile like gophers, and I had to strangle a laugh at the comparison.

"Sarge!" one of the soldiers yelled as we approached. "Sarge, I...you...what...?"

"Close your mouth, you'll catch bullets that way," I grumped. I might've saved their asses, but I didn't have to be polite about it.

"Sitrep," Ash asked wearily, and one of the Marines nodded.

"Sarge, we were holding the dig site, we got pushed back to here. The geth have armor, dropships, and these things near to the site."

"Things?" Ash asked.

The Marine looked down and shuffled his booted feet. "You wouldn't believe me if I said it. They took the people from third squad and-"

"Sarge?" interrupted another Marine. "Sarge, down there, it's-" He trailed off, shivering, and we all craned our heads to look. I looked down the hill, past ruined hulks of geth corpses, and saw something that I knew would be making a guest appearance in my nightmares.

They were human...or what was left of them. Their eyes glowed with electric fire, their mouths echoed a strange and inhuman howl. The corpses charged at their former comrades in arms with eyes fused open and skeletal arms spread wide. They weren't like Hollywood zombies: they ran with a freakishly synchronized gait that seemed hypnotic. Even as I scrabbled for my pistol, one of the larger monsters slowed as its arm transformed. The thing's eerie moan somehow echoed louder as it raised a blue-glowing barrel towards me, and I felt almost stunned as the gun fixed on me.

The weapon fired.


	9. Chapter 9: Dresden

The monster's electric eyes met mine, even as its gun sighted on me and fired a shot which hit my barriers. A second too late to dodge, I felt the pull of a Soulgaze and was powerless to resist.

I found myself inside a cathedral of jagged ice. Indecipherable patterns writhed on the walls, swirling into defined images only when I looked at them sideways. Blue-black ice formed the faraway walls, arched ceiling, and massive pillars which held up the frozen construct. A constant murmur bounced around the edges of my hearing, occasionally ending in a faraway discordant screech or an earthshaking rumble. A weak, pale light shone from an unknown source, barely enough to illuminate the frigid hall. I stepped forward hesitantly, and my boots rang out like gunshots on the icy ground. I breathed in deeply, almost tasting the illusionary chill air. This was not a place for mortals.

Yet in the middle of this unchanging palace, a man stood transfixed. His eyes were held open with surgical tools, and his jaw was wedged painfully wide. His throat bulged in a silent scream, but the massive frozen room was silent. His arms were held out in a rough crucifix, and razorwire snaked through blood-dripping holes in his sides and legs. A massive spike was rammed through his midsection, and stomach acids leaked past it to drip on the spotless ice below. His legs were pinned with razorwire and iron; his feet pounded uselessly at the icy floor.

The victim's eyes met mine as I approached, and he spasmed frantically against his bonds. Time seemed to slow as I reached the tortured man. I reached out a hand towards his face, but drew it back as nearby strands of dark razorwire uncoiled and loomed menacingly above their victim. The man sagged in defeat, the motion drawing further blood from his drained corpse.

I dropped to my knees and retched, wishing that I could forget the image. Even Mickey Malone, the retired Chicago cop tortured by Kravos's Nightmare, hadn't suffered like this. Yet just like a wizard's Sight, a soulgaze stays with you. No matter how far I ran, I'd never escape the memory of the wasted husk trapped inside its own body. Even as the telltale pull yanked me back to reality, I couldn't find the strength to stand.

Falling to my knees in real life, I saw the husk that I'd seen meet my eyes again - there's only one Soulgaze between two people. It looked at me for a second, ignoring the screams and sounds of the battle, before tilting its arm-cannon towards its own head and firing a single shot. I closed my eyes, ignoring the firefight as the chatter of guns died away.

"Sleeping on the job again, eh?" said a tired voice from my right. "On your feet, Dresden."

I pulled myself up slowly, hearing astonished muttering from the remaining Marines around me. "Zip it," Ashley murmured, and the soldiers quieted slightly. "Yes, that's Harry Dresden from Terra Nova. Yes, he blew up that geth Colossus. No, I still don't know how."

"Sarge," asked an armored Marine hesitantly, "what the hell's going on, anyway? You're here with some guy the Alliance wants real bad, that ship's up there ignoring us, the geth, those..." He waved a hand at the organic and metallic corpses below.

"Husks," I announced wearily. "Used to be people. You're going to find spikes with humans impaled on them, either vertical or horizontal." I looked around at our tattered band, recalling Ash's words. "The only way to save those poor bastards is a bullet to the brain. You see them, you shoot. No hesitation. No remorse. Understood?"

They nodded uncertainly, and I took a look at Ashley. Her helmet hid her expression, but she seemed as hesitant as the others. I sympathized. It's one thing to kill in anger, but it's another to decide who lives and who dies without the adrenaline to keep you focused. Yet in some way, I envied those soldiers. They had someone telling them to shoot the husks on sight; I'd been forced to see why.

"I'm going down there," I said, pointing a finger at the curl of faraway smoke. "This attack had a reason, and I intend to find out why. Move back, stay out of sight, and in an hour or two it'll all be over."

"Like hell," she responded, shouldering her rifle. "Sergei, consider your sorry ass promoted. Nguyen said she had wheels running, so link with her on channel 216. Get past 50 klicks before you signal her, understood?" She pointed away from the ongoing conflict. "E and E, kiddies! Get mobile, stay dark, and keep your sorry selves alive or I'll haunt you bastards the whole way to the hospital!"

They nodded, managing a quiet "ooh-rah" before turning to their fallen comrades and gathering the bodies. I slowly inched away from the sullen men, craning my head to look up at the defiance of physics that was complicating my plan. Boots squished on wet ground behind me, and I waited silently as Ash walked up.

"Problem, Dresden?"

"I'm allergic to masculinity. That much butt-slapping gives me hives."

"And if we started pounding our chests and grunting?"

I grinned. "Then I'd have to sit down and break out the inhaler."

Ash's helmet turned towards me. "Inhaler? I- oh, right. Luddite."

It was my turn to frown. "Only one person I know called me that. You've never met him."

Ash looked away and dropped her head. "Yeah. Hackett sent me the report from the asteroid you helped out at."

"See, this is the kind of thing I'd like to know," I said, peeved.

"Oh, so Mr. I-Have-'Magic' wants honesty, now?" Ash shot back. "Later, Dresden. What's your plan?"

"The giant squid monster and the geth came here for a reason," I said. "Talk on the move: what would something like that gain from a place like this?" Eden Prime was definitely pretty as hell, but I doubted that whatever-that-was came here for the high real estate value.

"Only one thing I can think of," Ash said grimly as we trudged back down the hill we'd fought over. We swerved in unison to avoid a smoldering chunk of Colossus. "My unit was stationed here to guard an archaeological dig site."

"Archaeological," I mused. "The geth are here for knowledge?"

"Probably," Ash said. "I can't think why else they'd come."

"Maybe it's an embassy mission," I deadpanned. "They were firing peace lasers!"

Ash stopped suddenly and turned towards me. "Did you meet Corporal Bhatia back up there on the hill? Great woman, smart as a whip, wanted to open her own restaurant with her husband after she got out?"

"Nope," I responded, confused.

"That's cause you stepped over her corpse on the way up the hill," Ash said angrily, jabbing a finger at my chest. "No more fucking around, Dresden. Find me a way to hurt these bastards."

I shrugged. I sympathized with Williams, but I couldn't do much against the sheer numbers of enemies facing us - to say nothing of the ship above. There wasn't much I could say either, and after a moment I turned and continued walking, the silence hanging oppressively above our heads. The Marine fell into step a short distance behind me, although to her credit her rifle wasn't fixed on my back.

When the next group of geth started shooting at us, it was almost a relief.

* * *

><p>I ducked as Ash fired at my head.<p>

The burst of assault rifle fire barely missed my helmet, but wrecked the geth behind me. The machine collapsed to the dirt in a spray of silvery goo and machine noises that sounded weirdly like drawn-out farts. "Clear!" Ash yelled, her rifle pointed around the corner I'd just come from, while I checked the area behind her. The prefab houses clustered around the dig site all seemed eerily deserted, with a slight wind whistling through open windows that gaped like massive eyes. Then again, maybe that was the adrenaline screwing with my head again. Seeing no one trying to kill me yet, I lowered my gun and thought about what to do.

"Follow me," I ordered offhand, stowing my pistol and readying my 'staff' with a thought. The roving bands of flying geth drones wasn't a serious problem, if really annoying. Neither were the humanoid flashlight-heads on the ground, although they could throw an impressive amount of bullets at us. No, the real problem was-

"Move!" A shove sent me stumbling into the nearest prefab building, and I fell onto the ground as Ashley dove in on top of me. The flimsy structure buzzed like a tree leaf in a high wind, and I reflexively collapsed my lungs and opened my mouth in the classic drop-and-cover routine. My heart pounding in my chest and Ashley's armored bulk crushing me into the floor, I waited silently as the roar intensified. A constant howling shriek echoed around the tiny huts, and I waited to see if I was going to die here.

The roar lowered slightly as the Doppler effect took hold, and the constant shaking slowly died away. I gratefully gulped in air and listened to Ashley doing the same over the suit's radio. "You know," I remarked, once I could speak again, "I normally like being on top."

"Go fuck yourself," Ash muttered, reaching for her rifle. "That was too damn close."

"Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades," I said cheerfully, straightening up and stepping outside.

"And ortillery," Ash grumped.

"Ortillery?" I asked, confused.

"Orbital artillery, Luddite."

I acknowledged the familiar insult with a hidden grin, even as I turned to look for a way out of the site. The geth dropship had gotten close - too damn close - to catching us that last time. My suit's shields reset themselves with a purple shimmer, and I blinked slightly at the sight. "Wait, don't they only do that once they've gone down?"

"Yup," Ashley announced smugly. "I turned our k-bars off back there so that our eezo signatures would get masked by all the lab equipment inside."

It took me a moment to get her meaning. "Waitaminnit, you have control over my suit?"

I could hear Ash's grin through the radio. "Yeah, Hackett gave me a little help before sending me out here." We trudged past the smashed dig site, following the trail of devastation that led towards a faraway cluster of buildings.

I shook my head slowly. "Hell's bells. First things after this, I'm having Fido fix that."

"You're fine with an AI controlling your hardsuit, and you think I'm crazy?" Ashley moved ahead of me, scanning the wrecked geth and human corpses with her rifle's scope.

I grinned. "You work for the government. Crazy was in the job description."

"Really?" Ashley's amused voice came over the radio. "I thought my job was 'boredom punctuated by moments of insanity and terror.'"

"Only if you work for the post office." I winced as my right foot sank into something squishy, and hurriedly pulled it free.

"Riiight," Ash drawled. We detoured around the massive pit in the center of the dig site, both of us watching the sky apprehensively. "That reminds me, what's your plan for pickup? Gonna call in your mechanical friend and get us out of here?"

I slowed to check the treeline, looking for signs of life. "I'll burn that bridge when I come to it. Besides," I continued, heading towards a thin spire on the horizon, "Fido'll figure something out."

"Why is his name Fido, anyway?" Ash said inquiringly.

"Why're you asking me?" I responded.

"With a name that corny? I see your warped mind behind that somehow, Dresden."

I sighed. "In World War Two, back on Earth, a man in Italy found a stray dog, and named him Fido. Means Italian for 'faithful.'" Ash was silent as I continued, lost in a very old memory. "The man got killed two years later in a bombing raid, but Fido kept waiting for him every day at the tram station 'till the day he died, eighteen years later." My dad had told me that story at the tender age of four, and it was one of my most treasured memories. In one of her more disturbingly sympathetic moments, Lash had dug the fragment out from my subconscious to try and win my trust. It hadn't worked according to her plan, but I'd never looked at the fallen angelic fragment in the same way again.

"Eighteen years," Ash mused. "Talk about keeping the faith."

"Yeah," I answered quietly. "He'll make it. Count on it."

* * *

><p>"They can't catch us," I wheezed.<p>

"What?" Ashley shouted over the noise of the firefight.

"They can't catch us! We're on a mission from God," I yelled back with a grin, punctuating the classic line with a lucky headshot on a geth platform.

Ashley looked up for a second. "God, I appreciate that you sent someone to help out, but couldn't you have found someone less crazy?"

"The regular guy got axed! You got the double-plus fun job of training the replacement," I shouted. Seeing three platforms trying to flank our battered hunk of cover, I sent a torrent of fire to force them back towards the group.

A baker's dozen geth had Ash and I under fire. The machines had thrown their disc-shaped grenades, but Ash's quick reflexes and a few quick gusts of wind had sent the things back to bother the other side. With little cover to work with except for the concrete barriers on either side of a roadway, we and the geth were playing redneck tag and scoring few hits.

Both sides were at an impasse, since our shields let us take a few hits before ducking for cover. The problem being, in the long run we were likely screwed. I didn't know how long it would take until the geth dropship came back, but when it showed up to play again, Ash and I would be literal dead meat. We needed to move, and soon. Firing a few desultory shots to tag an unlucky geth, I ducked back down and summoned my most familiar element.

Fire is a simple element to work with. It doesn't slip from your grasp like water or air, and it doesn't have the literally earth-shaking inertia of earth magic. Of course, hold fire for too long, and you'll get to re-learn the basic lesson of "touch stove, burn hands." Preparing the spell in my mind, I began a chant.

"Dresden! Either start shooting or make something explode _right fucking now!_" Ash yelled, as the geth collectively stood up and started firing at our meager cover, their metallic guns chipping away at the something-crete. I grinned and stood up, with my shield out and blasting rod ready. _"Fuego, pyrofuego!"_

A long whip of flame shot out slowly from the end of my blasting rod, twisting slightly in midair. Ignoring the impacts that collapsed my magical shield and hammered at my kinetic barriers, I yanked my blasting rod to the side and let out a triumphant whoop as the whip responded. The fire shot behind the geth's cover, torching the machines that had ducked down at the sight of a fire-throwing human. With only two charred robots left, Ashley finished our opposition with two rifle blasts. I turned toward her with a grin: "You were saying?"

"Show-off," she muttered, but I could hear the smile through the radio.

"If at first you do succeed, try not to look too astonished," I said back, grinning as well. I didn't know what was making our lives so easy, but we'd barely run into any resistance here. We hadn't seen any Colossi or other big metal monsters trudging around, and the dropships hadn't made a reappearance. It almost seemed like they were-

_"Run!"_ I yelled, breaking into a full sprint. "Move it, move it, move it!"

Ash obeyed without question, quickly catching up to my long strides. "Sitrep," she wheezed as we dashed over the uneven ground. "Later," I gasped, looking for cover. Seeing nothing but a shallow dip in the ground, I turned towards it and yelled, "There! Down!"

Again, Ash moved without a word. Throwing myself forwards, I twisted to face the sky and threw my left hand out. My shield bracelet, the tiny shields themselves clacking noisily against my armor, projected out the telltale green bubble as-

**BOOM!**

My world disappeared in a haze of smoke and ash. Dirt shot over my head, and I saw white-hot flame crackling through the sky. The blast wave roared past us, and I desperately scrabbled for traction as the rushing air tossed me like a feather.

Hands, rock-steady in the eye of the storm, held me in place as the roaring wave passed overhead. As the constant rain of debris slowly pattered back to earth, I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding and wiggled my fingers to make sure they were still attached.

"You call that ortillery?" I said shakily.

"'Wrath of God' works fine, too," Ash whispered. "C'mon, we have to move."

Nodding my head silently, I followed Ash away from the devastation. The same tower loomed large in our vision, untouched despite the rain of fire that had fallen a hundred yards away. We reached for weapons as we closed with the building, and I suddenly realized that I was looking at a train station.

"There. The Beacon," Ash whispered as we slowly crept towards the sprawling nest of buildings. A glowing object, looking like a giant alien sex toy, sat innocently in a forest of slate-grey crates. "They moved it from the dig site yesterday." I nodded in return, moving forward with my gun and shield out.

I turned a corner, and ran headfirst into the Dos Equis Man.

He had a weather-beaten face, accented with a trimmed goatee and moustache. Cloudy brown eyes gazed at me in astonishment as the Most Interesting Man in the World pulled a bloody hand away from his side and collapsed, wheezing, to the ground.

He wore dark camouflage fatigues, stained by dirt and sweat. Heavy combat boots, as grimy as the rest of his gear, thudded against the something-crete under us as the man pushed his back against the wall and set down his pack. Leaving aside the shiny raygun, the figure seemed almost like a 20th-century soldier next to the Marines' skintight armor.

The man who lives vicariously through himself opened his mouth, gaping like a stranded fish. I felt my own jaw dropping as I recognized his face. "Harry?" the man said disbelievingly.

I stared back. "Carlos?"

"Harry...I...shit, 'mano. What were you thinking?" Ramirez shook his head, while grabbing a container from his belt. He sprayed blue medigel over the wound in his side, before muttering a short incantation and pressing his hand over the bloody imprint in his armor.

"Matter of fact, I wasn't really thinking," I said, trying to understand Carlos's presence here. "What's going on, man? Stars and stones, what's happening here?"

"I'm a deliveryman, and I'm here to pick up a package," Carlos said with a faint grin, standing again and walking towards the glowing Beacon.

"That better not be a porn reference," I replied.

"Wouldn't dream of it, Harry." Carlos stopped, and pulled out a strange gun. "Actually, I would, but I'm telling the truth. And you shouldn't be here, Harry."

"I know, Ramirez," I said offhand.

A strangled gasp made me turn around. I watched in momentary shock as Ash crumpled to the ground, while Carlos turned his strange gun from her to me.

"No, Harry," he whispered. "You _really_ shouldn't be here."

* * *

><p>I woke up with a start, levering myself off the metal floor with a sudden jerk.<em> "Careful, boss,"<em> Fido's electronic voice echoed above me._ "He stunned you pretty good back there, yeah?"_

"Ramirez. You. What?" I could dimly hear a feminine voice uttering a string of curses worthy of a Marine. "Ash, you OK?"

"Shit. Fuck. Shitmotherfuckingfuck!"

"OK." I paused to think. "Fido, what the hell happened?"

_"I-I think you should see this, boss."_ The screen in front of the shuttle's tiny cabin cleared to show a rocking train, crates scattered on either side. The unseen camera turned to the right, and the Beacon slowly came into view, still glowing faintly. _"It's Carlos - a camera in his suit."_

The camera shifted again, turning towards the rear of the train that was slowly disappearing in shadow. Behind it, blotting out the sun, the massive ship advanced without a whisper. Geth dropships flocked to either side of the monster like guards around a ruler, and more of the robot ships spread out to flank the speeding train. The dreadnought loomed large over the human vehicle, its tentacle-arms spreading out like an unfolding hand.

Carlos took a deep breath, looking at the gnarled staff in his right hand. A flick of his wrist set the thing glowing, and I heard the metallic clicks of an unfolding weapon.

* * *

><p><em>*recommended music: "Black Hawk Down"* (Youtube *dot* comwatch?v=Yw3VkhTrK50&feature=related)_

"You know," Carlos muttered to himself, "I never really liked calamari."

I'd seen my share of jaw-dropping violence. I'd watched Lara Raith tear through mammoth-ghouls like butter, and felt Odin One-Eye pin me to the floor of Valhalla. I'd tested my weight against Gods and Dragons, and matched wits against an archangel. (He won) Point being, I knew what 'memorable' was.

But watching Carlos Ramirez fight that Thing was the stuff of legends.

Metal-fire plunged from the heavens, roaring from the ship's arms to pound the earth like a god's fists. The camera swiveled as Ramirez dodged another beam from above, rolling away from the artificial lightning while yelling _"Profullum!"_ A green-glowing fog appeared above the careening train, and the next awful blast from above twisted itself in midair before roaring back up. The ship let out a metallic screech of rage and pain, but fired again at the target below.

Anti-ship guns spat out shells at the insolent wizard, who returned the favor with spears of focused light. The three-kilometer ship weaved slowly in the air above Ramirez, bracketed by white-hot light from below. Impacts shook the earth, and the ground in Carlos's helmet camera rumbled and quaked under the impacts. Dirt shot up in geysers from the monster's missed shots, and a drab haze hung low in the air.

Carlos looked up and yelled another stream of syllables. Portals appeared around the ship's sides, as the ectoplasm of the planet's Nevernever coated the ship's hull and silenced its smaller weapons. The waving tentacles fired again, a few beams that were barely deflected by the weaving wizard underneath them. Debris from the impacts fell to the ground in a constant rain of mud, ash, and molten fire.

Blinking through the delirium and my own suit's happy-juice, I kept up the video feed and watched the end of Carlos Ramirez. Outnumbered, outmaneuvered, and outgunned, he kept up a duel with the three-kilometer monster above him as the train underneath kept moving. Geth ships clustered behind him, dodging Carlos's entropy fields and closing to drop their cargo. The dropships fired geth infantry from their sides, shaking the train with each impact as the metal monsters hit and unfolded.

_Pulse 134, BP 89/75, time 00:46-_ I could only understand bits and pieces of what the suit spit at me, but its meaning was clear: Ramirez was on his way out. His helmet dipped as the old wizard dodged a geth's burst of fire, and his return shots hit the machine directly in its shining eye. Another geth loomed large, and the wizard's right hand appeared in his vision as he threw a grenade. Glancing upward, Ramirez threw up another green-glowing entropy field barely fast enough to block a dropship's strafing run. Tracking the speeding ship, Carlos summoned another field in the dropship's path and watched as the geth flyer's own velocity ripped itself to shreds.

The camera view greyed out for a second, and a metallic roar echoed through the speakers. The image slowly returned, showing one of Ramirez's transparent green shields barely deflecting a constant stream of fire from the squid-ship above. Staggering slowly, Carlos pulled himself next to the Beacon and leaned on a crate next to it. The beam let up as he did, and the nearby geth stopped shooting directly at the wounded wizard. Carlos ignored the shrapnel flying past him, and concentrated on the innocent-looking beacon. The wizard's hand reached out and slapped a grenade down next to the device, and Carlos's voice crackled on my radio: "Saren! Come face me before I wreck your toy!"

The geth stopped in their tracks, their weapons drifting slowly towards the ground. The ever-present roar of the big squid-ship's guns let up, and the remaining geth dropships hovered at a respectful distance from the wrecked train and its cargo. Ramirez slowly sank to his feet, gasping almost imperceptibly in pain as he did.

The silence, a strange counterpart to the hellish noise a moment earlier, almost seemed to hum with tension as the train slowed to a halt. I felt myself holding my breath as the camera steadied and the noise died away.

"You're late." The voice had a raspy quality to it, a metallic grating that rung in my ears. I instinctively twisted to look for the speaker, even as my brain figured out that I was hearing Ramirez's audio feed.

"A wizard is never late, Saren Arterius. Nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to," Carlos nonchalantly declared in a surprisingly good faux-British accent.

"Is that so?" rasped the unseen voice dryly, before the most beat-up turian I'd ever seen landed lightly on the train car. His left arm was a geth-like metal prosthetic, and cables snaked across his body to disappear into his blue-glowing innards. Despite walking with a fluid, organic gait, the turian looked more than halfway machine.

His eyes were what truly scared me. They weren't simply the dead eyes of an experienced predator, although the alien showed as much compassion as my fairie godmother. It was more than the telltale blue glow of cybernetics behind the eyes themselves, although they were more than a little frightening to see. No, the turian's eyes were empty, in a way that I hadn't seen since my fifteenth birthday. I shivered reflexively at the memory of the Outsider known as He-Who-Walks-Behind.

"I never took you for a Tolkien fan," the turian continued. He strode lightly across the train car, his taloned hands in plain sight and away from the pistol at his waist. Carlos's own weapon remained trained on the half-robotic alien.

"What can I say?" Carlos said with a pained chuckle. "Can't fix what ain't broke, hombre."

"Unbroken?" the turian rasped. "You look rather beaten to me, little human." He lifted a talon to point at the wizard. "You should've stayed in your place. The things between the stars don't take well to competition."

"I can...can fight, Saren," Ramirez wheezed.

"Fight?" 'Saren' gestured at the monster ship hanging above them. "Fight that? Be realistic, Ramirez. A flea would have better odds taking down a rhino. Your cargo is the only reason you've lasted this long."

"Not..." Carlos said with a choked cough. "Not if..."

Saren cocked his angular head to one side. "Not if what?" The turian's pistol appearing in his hand faster than I could see, he slowly advanced on Ramirez's drooping body. "Not if _what_?" He grabbed Carlos's head, and my view shifted as the camera faced the turian directly.

Carlos laughed, an odd sound from a man who had seemed to be unconscious. "Not if I swapped the real Beacon with a big enough bomb."

Saren's weapon was a blur as the turian pistol-whipped Ramirez's helmet. A steady_ thunk-thunk-thunk_ sounded in my suit's speakers as geth approached the prone wizard. Saren, meanwhile, was already tapping at his omnitool while geth drones hovered around the dormant Beacon. The turian let out an incoherent roar and reached through the Beacon's surface, pulling out a small box through the Prothean device's flickering surface. The illusion collapsed as Saren crushed the device, revealing a squat metal shape emitting an ominous hum. The turian waved his omnitool over the small machine and turned to Ramirez before muttering, "Antimatter on a deadman's switch? Really?"

_"Detonation in two minutes,"_ said a flat electronic voice.

"_Mamá_ always told me not to play with matches. Shoulda listened," Ramirez said with a chuckle.

Saren nonchalantly approached Ramirez, swinging his pistol lazily through the air. "You should have checked your times better, wizard. Your bomb'll go off too late to help, and should erase any evidence that either of your Councils might use to chase me. I'd normally execute your sorry self, but I'd rather let you die by your own weapon." He looked away for a second, lost in thought. "There's a saying about that in your English, no? 'Hoist by his own petard?'"

Ramirez laughed heartily. "You're a tool, Saren. The Council used you, and now Sovereign's pulling your strings. You think you've got any say in that decision? You think you've got the freedom to choose?" Saren snarled, but Carlos merely laughed in response. "Go on, shoot me. Feel that tug? See the strings? You're a puppet, boy, and you're not even worth the bullet I'd need to end you."

Saren roared, pointing his weapon at Ramirez with his finger trembling on the trigger. He seemed lost in thought for a moment, before lowering the weapon and turning away towards a hovering geth platform. "Enjoy oblivion," he growled, before the machine carried him upwards towards Sovereign.

_"Detonation in sixty seconds,"_ murmured an electronic voice. Ramirez's helmet tilted back, and Carlos let out a long sigh.

"Harry," said Ramirez, "I wish...I wish I could describe it. I've seen the Truth, 'mano. Past, present, future, has-beens and could-bes. It's so damn beautiful, and terrible, and you're wrapped up in the middle of it. You poor bastard, you're gonna be at the tipping point, and I can't tell you a damn thing."

"Just...do what you have to, man. It'll be a long road, a dark one, and you're gonna have to go to Hell and through it to find the light." Ramirez twisted his head to face the looming monster above.** "END."**

Even at our distance,I could feel the shockwaves of Ramirez's death curse. "Turn us around! Let me see!" I yelled at Fido, clawing for the door hatch. I could feel the impact of the antimatter bomb seconds after Carlos's sacrifice, but I focused on the hatch in front of me, clumsily clawing at the release. Fido opened the door with a hiss of hydraulics, and I looked over a massive blast crater where a world had just been. The monster's black shape slowly rose in the distance, unscarred by the devastation below, and I felt my heart sink at the sight. Trying to see what had happened, I made one of the worst mistakes of my life.

I Looked, and immediately wished I hadn't. A wizard's Sight shows the world without illusions, everything from the normal to the sanity-twisting. It's the same with souls: Murphy appeared as a wounded angel, my dog Mouse as the part-celestial Foo dog that he truly was, and Kinkaid as the monster which lay under his human disguise. Their possessions, emotions, and thoughts appeared as metaphors; a sword standing in for a gun, and fire for pain. Whether bright or dark, beautiful or terrible, each soul was unique in my Sight.

When my Sight landed on the giant ship, I saw nothing but fire. A supernova of soul-flame burned low in the sky, casting a hellish light on the burning lands below. A chorus of screams danced at the edge of my hearing, each one incoherent and terrified. Heedless of my groggy attempts to stop it, my Sight captured the monster in its awful glory.

Nazara's surface was made up of bodies. Every creature was held in place like the husk I'd Soulgazed earlier; each poor soul was writhing in unending pain. The discordant sounds dancing at the edge of my hearing twisted in time with the people crucified on the hull, and the illusory fire pouring from the ship pulsed with the screams. The Being lifted an arm, and the distant souls pinned to it shrieked in unison as more pain-fire hit the ground below.

The titanic monster's heart was a writhing dot of darkness that beat in time with the pain-fire scorching the ground below. Even from my distant vantage point, I could feel the sheer Presence of the godlike monster warping everything around it into a pale imitation of itself. The dots of the few organics below Sovereign were mirrors reflecting its awful majesty, while the geth were puppets which danced to a material god's strings. The earth groaned in torment under the god's power, and the air trembled under its voice.

Darkness fell, and I was grateful.

* * *

><p>"He's coming around."<p>

Consciousness returned in bits and pieces, sights and sounds dancing at the edges of my vision. Afterimages of Sovereign's presence, crystal-clear in my Sight, hovered in my normal sight even as I tried to blink them away. "Go 'way," I muttered groggily, trying to swipe at the imaginary monsters hovering over my head with arms that refused to move.

"Feeling like your normal cheery self?" asked a familiar voice to my right. I looked away from my new nightmare to see Ash sitting by my bedside, dressed in an Alliance-ish uniform with unfamiliar symbols on it. "You had the good doctor worried for a while, there."

"Indeed you did, Mr. Dresden," a cultured British voice intoned gravely. I looked to my left and saw a woman, silver-haired and face unreadable, standing by my side. I winced at the volume of her voice. "Not so loud, pleasethankyou?" I whispered.

"Deal with it," a baritone voice boomed. A man stepped into my view, wearing more Alliance clothing with lots of silver bits on it. He folded his arms and stared down at me disapprovingly. "Gunnery Sergeant Williams is here, and out of the brig where she deserves to be, on the doctor's orders."

"Brig?" I asked, confused.

"Yes, the brig," the man said with a scowl. "Where soldiers who aid and abet terrorists end up, facing court-martial." He looked over at Ash. "Step out of line in any way, Gunny, and Dr. Chakwas's wishes won't save your sorry ass."

"Wait, what?" I said. For the first time, I noticed the shackles around my wrists.

"Confused? Let me spell it out for you." The man leaned in slightly. "Harry Dresden, I'm Captain Anderson. Welcome to the frigate _Normandy_. You're under arrest."

* * *

><p><em>Comments and criticism appreciated!<em>


	10. Chapter 10: Shepard

In retrospect, Shepard mused, offering Queen Mab a beer had probably been a bad idea.

The N agent appreciated his understanding of one of life's great mysteries from the church's cheap linoleum floor, while snowflakes pooled around him in an impromptu tableau. Murphy, her gun locked on target, sidestepped away from the cowering refugees. Father Forthill ushered the bystanders towards the door, one hand holding a crucifix high. Winter winds swirled around the cramped back room, in stark contrast to the hot summer night.

Shepard looked left to see Molly, shivering from fear and the unnatural cold. The young woman rocked herself slowly under the wire-frame bed, keening incoherently under her breath. As the Marine reached out a hand to help, Molly's eyes refocused and she quickly rolled away. She muttered gibberish and disappeared completely from the soldier's sight, while light footsteps creaked softly against the worn floorboards.

"Little knight," crooned a feminine voice from above. Shepard turned back towards his real problem, which was currently straddling his chest and reaching a hand towards his face. Cold, inhuman eyes gazed on him like a lion would watch sheep, and ruby-red lips crooked in a wide smile. A delicate hand brushed against his cheek, but the being's fingers burned like ice against his skin.

She was beautiful. Her skin was flawless, every feature perfectly placed and expertly molded - and for all he knew, it probably was. Even as he reached for his Varren Fang, Shepard took a moment to appreciate the creature straddling his chest. She broke every objective, human standard of beauty, so much that the room seemed to dim in comparison. In a moment of hilarious clarity, Shepard realized that he'd probably need to get new porn magazines if he survived this.

"Mortal, thou hast wronged me greatly," whispered the faerie. Shepard's mind raced, fitting together the fragmented shards of knowledge he'd gleaned from Dresden's mind and this new world he faced. "Thou hast stolen a great prize from under mine own reach, and I _desire_ recompense," Queen Mab announced, leaning forward as she did.

"Um," Shepard said.

"My Knight, felled by ferromancy, was within my grasp," Mab announced, her snow-white hair drifting to an invisible wind. "A mortal, to be sure, but his Power was great. He would play a leading part in this time of troubles, and he would be _mine_." She snarled, the sound rumbling like crashing glaciers. "My weapon, my tool, my Power!"

"Um," Shepard said desperately.

"Little knight, thy presence has taken mine own Knight from me," the Unseelie Queen said quietly. "Thou owest me a debt that thou cannot easily repay. Find my Knight's murderer, track down his killers and bring them before me, _or my vengeance shall be swift and my justice deadly!_" The snow whirled in a miniature blizzard, and the indoor wind howled like damned men. Pressed to the floor by cold, unyielding force, Shepard could only watch as Mab rose into the air and disappeared without another word.

"Um," Shepard said.

"Shit," Murphy finished for him. She lowered her weapon, moving through the frigid room towards the open door. Shepard struggled to his feet, looking over the snowed-in beds with a frown, as Murphy asked, "Where's Molly?"

"Molly?" It took a moment for Shepard to remember the name, and longer for him to recall what had happened. "Cloaked. Tracks in the snow." He pointed at the set of bare footsteps, partially obscured by the faerie winds, that were still barely visible in the dissolving ice.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit, _shit_!" Murphy muttered to herself vehemently, stowing her weapon and grabbing her cell phone. "Of all the creepy-crawly things to run into today...Get the others. Talk to Forthill. I'll deal with the Carpenters."

Overwhelmed, the Marine grabbed his gear and quickly moved into the church itself. Ignoring the massive room, he focused immediately on the shivering refugees and the portly priest guarding them. "You're safe," he announced quietly, walking over to the small group. "Different problem, not yours."

"Not our problem?" a quavering voice asked weakly. "Queen Mab herself walked onto consecrated ground, simply to see you. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have thought it even possible." The N operative turned to see the same old woman he'd counseled minutes ago. She raised a finger and pointed it at him slowly. "My boy, you've got quite the problem on your hands."

Father Forthill nodded silently, but beckoned to Shepard as he stepped away from the whispering civilians. The tall Marine followed, tapping instructions into his translucent omnitool as he did. The old priest turned away from the refugees and whispered, "My son, I wish that I didn't have to ask this of you now-"

"But?" Shepard interrupted wearily.

The priest nodded again. "Harry Dresden left behind several powerful artifacts in his home. They are dangerous tools in the wrong hands, and I'm sure that others are already moving to recover them. I would ask you to go to his apartment and secure anything which might be harmful if left unchecked." Forthill spared a glance towards the huddled group. "I can handle this flock, but combat," he spread his arms to indicate his ample belly, "is not my strength."

The Marine gave a crooked grin. "Understood, padre." Moving silently through the darkened church, Shepard donned his old disguise as "John Baker" slipped out into the hot Chicago summer night.

* * *

><p>"Think, Murphy, think. Where does a six foot, space-magic supersoldier with a shotgun fetish and a ten-word vocabulary hide?"<p>

Karrin Murphy resisted the urge to answer her own question with "Anywhere he wants to," but it was a close call. Not for the first time, she cursed her new problem child's communication problems and ability to disappear the moment she looked away.

A Cubs baseball cap pulled low over her hair, she walked quickly through the glow of streetlamps and the pre-dawn light. Her bike was parked two blocks away, and Dres- the burned building was a block ahead, still roped off by police tape and defunct wards. She unconsciously scanned the deserted streets for threats, her mind lost in emotion and thought.

A muted scratching noise echoed from an alley to her left; the former cop spun on her back foot, settling into a classic shooter's stance. Her gun steadied on the alley's opening, Murphy slowly sidestepped to clear the corner, holding her weapon one-handed while her other reached for her flashlight. One breath in, another out, and Karrin Murphy readied herself for yet another fight in a day that refused to end. With her gun and flashlight clutched together, she switched the powerful light on down the shadowed alleyway.

Mister the tomcat dashed out, yowling in annoyance.

Murphy laughed, a ragged noise that echoed hollowly among the silent buildings. Slowly lowering her weapon, she chuckled helplessly as the thirty-pound cat rubbed against her leg, purring like a car engine. The cop steadied herself with a second-long breathing exercise, before turning back towards the burned-out building. Shattered windows gazed out like unseeing eyes as she walked towards it, and the landward wind from Lake Michigan whistled through the empty street.

A second passed. One second stretched into five, then ten, then a minute. Karrin Murphy stood, one foot outstretched past the curb, not moving a muscle. Her arms hung limply at her sides, her pistol a cold, dead weight in her hand. Her breath hissed softly from between clenched-up teeth, the former cop's eyes locked like lasers on the shattered apartment.

Mister bumped her back leg, the impact sending her stumbling forward. "Fuck!" Murphy cursed to no one in particular, and took another step ahead.

Entering Dresden's apartment was exactly as awful as she'd imagined it would be. The stairs to his basement abode were scorched black from the heat, the upper crust scattered by the tread of booted feet. The steel door, a constant pain in the ass for anyone trying to get in or out, perched improbably against the concrete wall opposite its rails. Drawing in a deep, shuddering breath, Murphy walked inside.

There was no tingle. Every time she'd passed that "threshold," as he'd always called it, Murphy had felt the pins-and-needles sense of something buzzing behind her ears. It was the closest she'd ever gotten to actually feeling magic casting, and a constant reminder of what Harry dealt with - _had _dealt with - every day. Now, the hot Chicago summer air poured in past the gaping doorway, ruffling her hair gently and sending ashes skittering across the floor.

The apartment had its own unique smell: a melange of candle wax, beer, incense, and men's locker room. It was a mix of antique and modern, normal and out-of-this-world, a grab bag of rage and strength and faith. She'd never admitted it to his face, but Murphy had always loved those chances she took to venture down into Harry's lair. ("Batcave," he'd called it with a grin) Past that scratched door and its equally scarred guardian, she could shed the "Lieutenant" (_Sergeant_,_ on suspension_ she absently corrected herself) and just be "Murphy."

She slowly walked over the charred floorboards, skirting fallen beams and tumbled fragments of the home. Running her hands over the scorched and melted remains of the old icebox, (he'd never been able to keep a regular fridge for long) Murphy drew in another breath and let it go silently. Closing her eyes and muttering a half-remembered prayer from her childhood, she stopped and faced the truth.

Dresden was dead. There was no "but," no beyond-the-grave trickery to get him back: his body was cooling in the city morgue, you can sign for possession three days after the autopsy, may God take his soul, amen. The five stages of grief were four stages too long for a cop in Special Investigations, doubly so when you took a serious look at what went bump in the night. Staying in denial was going to get someone else killed, and grief, anger, and bargaining would do the same. Squaring her shoulders, Murphy went to find her current problem.

He was standing in Dresden's old bedroom, a small red object held in a black-gloved hand. The black, featureless helmet regarded it blankly, barely looking in her direction as she approached. The armored figure reached out to twist a knob, and Murphy felt herself swallowing back tears as she heard the tiny Mickey Mouse alarm clock tick.

"He really wanted to go on that date," Shepard rumbled softly. Murphy tried to laugh and cry at the same time, but only managed a strangled hiccup. Her legs buckled, and the paper-thin wall she'd built to keep the grief away was shredded as realization flooded in. Hugging herself against the wall, Murphy sobbed silently as Shepard stood awkwardly over her.

The footsteps were near-silent and carefully timed, the tread of an experienced professional. Despite the intruder's caution, learned instinct heard the faint sound, and Murphy jerked her head up at the noise. Shepard motioned at her with a foreign hand signal, before turning in place to point at the wall. Like before, Murphy watched in stunned silence as he started to glow with an unnatural purple light.

The light spread out, bathing the tiny room in its freakish glow, and Murphy held her breath as a strange humming sound filled the air. She could smell the stink of ozone on the air, and as she reached for her pistol, the buildup reached a breaking point.

Shepard smashed through the dividing wall like it didn't exist, scattering fallen beams and scattered debris flying away from the purple fireball. Murphy was on her feet in an instant, yanking her gun from its holster while cursing her inattention. The Sig Sauer trained on the path of destruction, she followed Shepard to find him facing down the pistol-holding intruder.

"What did that poor wall ever do to you?" Tilly asked with a faint grin.

"Got in the way," Shepard grunted, still glowing purple despite the pre-dawn light.

To an inexperienced outsider, Agent Barry Tilly of the FBI would have seemed his normal, unflappable self. An experienced outsider like Shepard noted the bags under his eyes and the slight tremble in his gun hand. To Murphy, Tilly looked one step from falling apart. His clothes, normally perfectly attired, were creased and lined as much as his face. His eyes twitched, barely able to meet her gaze, and his shooter's stance was sloppy at best. For a perfectionist like Tilly, Murphy knew that he was on the edge.

Shepard sidestepped to the right, his shotgun braced against his arm."Gun. Down."

Tilly shook his head slowly. "No."

The basement air echoed with a metallic **click-clack** as Shepard cocked his shotgun. Murphy glanced over at Shepard. "Does that thing even _have_ a slide?"

"Nope." Shepard grinned. "Help negotiations, though."

"Murphy," Tilly began wearily. "My office was attacked yesterday by a creature which shrugged off bullets like candy. I've got fifteen wounded, six dead." He hung his head. "The first funerals start next week." He took a deep breath before sighing deeply. "I-I don't know what's going on, or what you know or who the hell _he_ is," he indicated by jerking his head towards the armored Marine, "but I know you've involved in this somehow. Karrin, please - I need something to go on here."

Murphy dropped her head, lowering her pistol as she did. Tilly did the same, and his pistol had almost reached its holster before Shepard body-slammed him. The thin man flew across the ruined room, nearly hitting the brick wall on the other side. Murphy spun on her heel, raising her weapon again, and had sighted on Shepard in time to see him throw another purple-glowing bolt at the doorway.

The hooded creature at the door let out an inhuman snarl as it was dragged forward, but as it crossed into the room, it disappeared into dark tendrils of smoke. The smoke whirled around the room before settling in another corner; Murphy spun to face it as Shepard's shotgun fired. As the smoke stabilized again, Murphy got her first good look at the creature attacking them.

Its coal-grey hood covered most of its head, keeping its face shadowed in the dark basement, but two green eyes shone dimly in the pre-dawn glimmer. Clawed hands aimed a pistol at her, the weapon's dull black metal glinting slightly as it arced towards her. Murphy fired on instinct, her Sig throwing three bullets into the thing's center of mass. The creature fired back once, and Murphy felt the telltale 'whump' of an impact on her stomach that didn't break armor. The thing disappeared again as she pulled the trigger, and the cop's fourth bullet burrowed into the wall.

Spinning to clear the room, she found the situation well in hand: Shepard slowly strode towards the door, his weapon tracking an unseen target above. He fired once through the brick, and a loud snarl echoed through the basement. As Murphy and Tilly moved to flank him, Shepard held up a fist and slowly walked ahead. Covered by the basement's cement stairwell, he carefully checked the outside before turning to the others.

"Hold. I'm up, sniper check."

Tilly frowned. "Aren't you worried that they'll get through your," he fumbled with the world, "shield-thing?"

Shepard grinned, before pumping his fist and becoming highlighted in brilliant purple light. "Not this one." He walked towards the door, slowly ascending the steps-

_whizz-__**BOOM**__!_ The sniper rifle's report was deafeningly loud in the cramped space, and Shepard quickly stepped back down the staircase, the bright purple light a dull glimmer now. "Nevermind. Ow."

Murphy motioned towards the door. "Hold on. Those things were here for a reason, and we need to figure it out first."

Tilly whirled on her. "The hell we do! Tell me what's going on first, while I call the police."

Murphy reached out a hand, which Tally batted aside. "Barry, we're here to secure anything valuable, and most likely, those things are too. We can't go out yet, but they can't get in, so there's no harm in looking around as long as we guard the door. Besides, do you want untrained cops on a call like this?" Tilly paused, but nodded in temporary agreement.

"You first on sentry," Shepard grunted at the FBI agent. "Watch for grenades." Tilly looked like he was going to argue but abruptly reconsidered, taking a knee behind a ruined couch. Murphy went for the old trapdoor, still intact despite the general devastation, and yanked it open after a few unsuccessful tries. Weapons out, the two descended into the sub-basement.

"Shit," Shepard breathed out slowly as the two surveyed the cramped wizard's laboratory. Murphy could only nod in agreement: she'd seen Dresden's lab a few times, but despite his tendency to be a total slob, he'd always kept the lab well-ordered.

Had done, at least. Now neatly-labeled spell components were missing and scattered everywhere, while various drawers were shattered and left open. A thick dust filled the air, and ash drifted lazily among glinting silver on the floor.

"Hold up, radiological here." Shepard held up a fist, and Murphy stopped with a frown, trying to remember what would cause it. She snapped her fingers as she realized the answer, and announced, "That's ghost dust; part of it was depleted uranium. We should be OK."

The Marine shook his head doubtfully, but continued forward through the devastation. "Key objects?"

"I wish I knew," Murphy responded honestly. "No, wait; check that model on your left." The cop and the Marine flanked the massive table holding up the giant scale model, as each looked over the tiny pewter buildings of what Harry had dubbed "Little Chicago."

Murphy had known how useful a tool it was, but she'd never really looked at the thing before. The model was unbelievably accurate, down to every streetlight and tree; she felt like she could see cars and people on the model's streets if she squinted. "Weird," Shepard's gravely voice dragged her from her reverie.

"It's a tracking tool, like GPS for wizards," Murphy said, her mind thinking of the possibilities. "It's for thaumaturgy, where you basically make connections between different things. This model would let you connect and track pretty much anything in Chicago, as long as you knew how to use it."

Shepard nodded, before reaching for a small bottle on his belt. As Murphy watched, dumbfounded, he unscrewed the top and started to spill a clear fluid over Little Chicago. "Incendiary," he explained at her confused stare.

"What?" Murphy yelled. "What in the _hell_ do you think you're doing?"

"Denying resources," Shepard said frankly, replacing the bottle on his belt. "Got a lighter?"

"No, damnit, I don't! Why the hell do you think this is a good idea?" Murphy said, shocked. She automatically took two steps away from Shepard, her hand slipping to her holstered pistol.

"It's Dresden's tool, but he's dead. Can you use it?" Shepard asked.

"No," Murphy conceded. Dresden had mentioned that he'd kept Molly far away from anything as tempting as Little Chicago, and Murphy had her doubts about the young mage's stability since- well, since Mexico.

"Can't use it, can't transport it, enemy might recover it, dangerous if they do. Deny them resources," Shepard announced brusquely.

"Damnit!" Murphy cursed. "Can't we just hold them off, and get it out of here later?"

"How? Can't get it through trapdoor, trespassing on crime scene, enemies sieging us might bring building-crackers. Can't stay, can't bring it with us. Destroy it instead," Shepard said.

Murphy hung her head, her eyes held shut to keep the tears back. She knew that her view on Little Chicago was skewed by her attachment, but it was almost literally all she had left of Dresden. In a terrible three days, her life had been turned upside down: she'd lost every-damn-thing, from her job to her mission to her...whatever Dresden was to her. It was too much. She couldn't take it.

She opened her eyes. "There's some string to your left. Grab that and soak it in the fuel; I'll get a match."

* * *

><p>Life was out to get him, Agent Tilly decided. There really was no other possible explanation. Life, or Fate, or God or what have you had it in for Barry Tilly, a.k.a. Chicago Branch Agent Tilly, a.k.a. "Slim" of FBI amateur baseball fame.<p>

"So, there's a model in Dresden's basement which acts like a classic voodoo doll," he announced.

"Yup," the armored man agreed, rifling through the scorched kitchen cabinets as she did.

"And anything which happens in the real Chicago happens in the model, and vice versa," he ventured.

"More or less," Murphy agreed, her gun trained at the door since she'd taken over sentry duty from him.

"So...what happens when we _burn the voodoo doll_?" Agent Tilly asked desperately.

"Um," the armored man said with a startled jerk, his featureless helmet turning towards Murphy. She tilted her head to the side, lost in thought, before motioning to him. "I've got it. Hold here," she said, heading towards the trapdoor.

There was no other explanation, Tilly decided. God was out to get him.

* * *

><p>A model which could incinerate half the city seemed surprisingly easy to disarm, Shepard decided. He prodded the line of salt with his boot. "That it?"<p>

"As long as you don't break the damn circle!" Murphy said, shaking more salt over the Marine's bootprint. Drawing a small knife from her pocket, she pricked her finger and let blood drops spill onto the salt circle below. "Let's go," she ordered grimly.

"That it?" Shepard asked again.

"Yeah," Murphy said quietly. "All those years of work, and it takes a box of matches to make it all go away." Shepard couldn't think of anything to say, and remained silent as the cop tossed a match onto the end of the fuel-soaked cord.

Memory struck the instant before the match connected: _"Remember, boys and girls, M38C burns __really__ well with cotton, so be careful around any of that organic shit!"_ The Marine managed a single "Oh-" before the blaze started.

"-shit," he finished belatedly as the fire burned far too rapidly along the impromptu fuse, grabbing Murphy and shoving her bodily towards the stairs. Hoping that his k-bars would hold, he shielded the unarmored woman as they thundered up the stairs to the basement room. "Behind me!" he ordered as the crackling sound of a roaring fire increased, and pulled up his strongest Barrier as he approached the door again.

They were waiting for him outside. The first round hammered his barrier, sending him stumbling up the stairs two steps at a time. His suit had calculated the bullet's flightpath by the time he'd turned, and the arc showed in a brilliant white streak across the Marine's HUD as he stood. With his pistol out, Shepard aimed and fired at the same time as the unseen enemy shot again. The second round fully depleted his Barrier, but one of Shepard's rounds found his opponent. A loud yowl sounded across the deserted streets, and no more rounds followed the first two.

"On me, go!" Shepard yelled, his blood singing in a way he could only feel from a good firefight. Murphy and Tilly stacked up behind him, their pistols covering either flank as the trio moved into the open. Behind them, flame shot out from the basement as Little Chicago burned inside the old lab. "Transport?" he asked.

"My car," Tilly motioned to the right, and the N operative's eye spotted an unmarked white van parked down the street. "Copy," Shepard responded, taking point as they half-ran towards the vehicle. Shepard silently thanked Whoever above for having trained professionals to work with, and threw himself into the van's back seat without a second thought.

"You're an FBI agent, and you drive a rapist van around?" Murphy asked disbelievingly, jumping into the driver's seat as Tilly stopped, confused.

"What? It works for surveillance. And that's my seat," Tilly said, pointing at the driver's seat.

"Keys, Barry," Murphy responded, holding out her hand. The FBI agent dropped them in her hand after a moment's hesitation, then ran to the passenger's seat as the car's engine roared to life. The van screeched away from its parking space, quickly picking up speed on the nearly-deserted street, as two unmarked sedans rounded the corner behind them.

"Two vehicle contacts, your six," the Marine announced calmly, stowing his pistol and grabbing his shotgun. As metallic _thunks_ echoed through the van's back, and as metallic pockmarks appeared on the trunk, Shepard blew the van's side door open with a single shotgun blast. As the heavy door swung back, the marine stowed his shotgun and reached both hands out to the car roof's overhang. Throwing himself out from the side of the speeding van, Shepard hauled himself back onto the roof and locked his mag-boots into place on the top.

"Shepard, what-"

"Keep moving!" he yelled, the sound carrying through his helmet speakers. Murphy obliged; the van's engine growled forward and the heavy vehicle shot forward with the stink of burning rubber. Bystanders gaped at the armored figure standing on top of the car, which weaved through early-morning traffic with the frequent _screech _of bumper-on-bumper impacts.

His head encased inside the world's most expensive chunk of ceramic, Shepard noticed none of this. As his HUD projected a target area, the Marine took a knee and grabbed his Avenger rifle, unfolding the huge gun and linking its sights. His helmet's screen projected the crosshairs over his vision, and the operative took aim at the nearest car.

_Thudthudthud._ The weapon's report seemed muted compared to the damage it caused. Traveling at near-relativistic speeds, three microscopic grains of metal passed through the car's hood like it didn't exist. As their shockwaves finished the destruction, the car screamed to a halt like it had hit an invisible wall. Smoke poured out from under the hood, and the hooded figures inside abandoned it as the sun continued to rise.

The other car, its occupants clearly spooked by its compatriots' fate, screeched around a corner to escape the unmarked van. Shepard placed a nav marker to trace the tire tracks later, before carefully stepping towards the front of the van. Banging on the roof, he spoke through his external speakers: "Pursuit's E&E, we're clear. Keep going."

"Damnit, Shepard, what did doors ever do to you?" Tilly's voice sounded strained, and Shepard grinned at the sound. "Karrin, where the hell are we going?"

"Rudolph's place," Murphy yelled over the ambient noise of wind, traffic horns, and bystander yells. "He knows something, and I want to find it out. Hey Barry, is this thing insured?"

"Yeah, I-damnit, Karrin, _really_?"

Murphy let out a long laugh as the van sped through Chicago, Shepard's feet still planted firmly on the roof.

* * *

><p>"That's the house?" Shepard yelled over the roar of the wind.<p>

"Yeah!" Murphy said, her tone angry.

"Do _not_ stop!" Murphy's only response was to gun the engine, and the bullet-riddled van increased speed down the suburban road.

As the unstoppable force barreled onwards towards the unyielding object, Shepard was treated to flashes of ordinary and extraordinary moments. Mowed lawns and red-brick houses stood in stark contrast to the scarred white van roaring down the middle of the street - and the man surfing on top of it. A middle-aged man in a bathrobe, coffee cup in pieces at his feet, gaped at the spectacle flying by; Shepard barely resisted the urge to wave. Focusing on the target, Shepard spotted an unmarked black SUV parked out front, and the three figures moving from it to the target's front door.

One of the figures, halfway up the path to the house, spun at the noise of the van. In a motion that rattled Shepard's stomach, the human rapidly transformed into something out of Dante's nightmares, as green scales and new limbs sprouted across its body. The monster paused in momentary indecision, a second pair of eyes opening at the top of its head, before turning to evade. Shepard grinned as he realized his first target, and crouched to prepare.

Safety interlocks triggered as his knees bent, and the operative waited until the last possible second to attack. As the van's bumper neared the SUV, Shepard jumped upwards; the safety locks released his mag-boots and let him arc almost gracefully above the car accident below. Tucked in a fetal position, Shepard unstoppably cannonballed forward, bellowing his old unit's war cry with a grin:

"_**Faugh a ballaugh!"**_

The SUV was shredded by the impact; with its center of weight above the van's, it was flipped on its side with a tremendous crash of glass. As the huge vehicle slowly rolled on its back, the van crashed onto its back wheels with the hiss of escaping air. The van's front windshield had been completely destroyed by the impact, but Shepard could dimly see the billowing white fabric of old-school airbags obscuring the passengers. Swinging his head to clear the headache, the N operative slowly stumbled to his feet to find himself presented with a slight problem.

Despite being hit with two hundred kilos of armor and augmented human, the monster was still alive. Bones creaked back into place and flesh re-knit itself with a wet gurgle, as the creature fought to stand. Shepard dispassionately braced his weapon and fired, the Carnage shell undoing the creature's prior work and causing it to hiss in pain. With his shotgun hissing as well as its cooling vanes radiated white-hot thermal buildup, the Marine lowered his weapon as another monster growled at him.

"You shouldn't have used up your weapon that so soon, little human," the bear-like monster said with a manic grin, drool flying from its mouth in a constant stream.

Shepard smirked, the gesture invisible under his helmet, before spreading his arms wide. "Who said I needed it?"

The creature had just started to dodge away as Shepard brought his hands together, beginning the mnemonic action. Eezo nodes sent the Marine flying forward in yet another Charge, the impact knocking the bear-like monster off its feet. With his weapon finally ready, Shepard fired at the retreating monster, which howled in pain as the pellets shot through it. The two monsters, each limping from the impacts they'd suffered, ran from the black-armored Marine as Murphy and Tilly scrambled from the burning wreck.

Shepard grinned and flicked his shotgun to the "C" selector again, before-_BZZZZT!_

The impact threw him several feet, the Marine landing heavily on his left side. The electricity coursing through his body was doing the same to his suit, and the N operative found himself spasming uncontrollably.

"Now, now, Saluriel," purred a voice from inside Rudolph's house. Another monster, its second pair of eyes shining brightly, sauntered from the house. "Ladies first."


	11. Chapter 11: Shepard

_Norwest uses the Super Apology Gambit!_

_Sorry, everyone! I've moved to Beirut to work for an NGO, and my life's been a 50-hour-workweek, turns-out-my-Arabic-really-needs-work, oh-crap-stomach-flu stressed out here. On the bright side, new chapter!_

* * *

><p>"An outcast, a dog, and a ghost," the woman said with a confident smirk, looking over the three humans in front of her. "No Knights and Swords for you, little mortals."<p>

"Gnnnnh," Shepard gritted out past his spasming jaw, his body arcing from residual jolts of electricity. The Marine's eyes were unfocused, but he could see two indistinct blobs looming above him, and hear Magog's faint snarl. Relaxing and emptying his mind, he waited for the shock to fade.

"Polonius Lartessa," Murphy announced slowly, her voice muted in Shepard's ears, "you are under arrest on suspicion of committing pretty much every crime I can think of. You have the right to-" she began, cut off by Lartessa flicking a whip of fire at her.

"Really, dear," Lartessa said mockingly, "you'll have to be less obvious about trying to delay me than that. Magog, move," she ordered. The slavering Denarian did so, shuffling a short distance away, and the Marine regained enough control to turn his head and look at his enemy.

"Who are you?" Lartessa cocked her head to the side, the gesture made strangely disturbing by the extra pair of green-glowing eyes on her forehead.

"A guy with a gun," the Marine grunted, putting on a show of fighting against uncooperative muscles.

"Maaaybe," Lartessa sing-sang, pacing with light steps across the porch. "Maybe you're something more. Who are you?"

Flipping himself into a crouch, Shepard looked at Lartessa directly. "My name is John Shepard, and you are in my way." And Shepard caught a glimpse of pure, unadulterated fear on the woman's face before a storm of bullets rained through the house's front door.

Caught by surprise, the sorcerer arched backwards as a rapid **BOOM-BOOM-BOOM **echoed across the quiet suburban neighborhood. As the weapon's roar quieted, Lartessa collapsed to her feet while a shadowy figure inside dropped its weapon to the ground with a metallic clatter.

The demon Magog, caught by surprise by the sudden attack, turned to aid Lartessa, who was busy pulling chunks of metal from her stomach on the bloody front step. Shepard grinned and threw himself forward; although the Denarian's bulk and agility initially kept him upright, the armored human and demon-enhanced host quickly fell to the ground in a confused heap. Pushing the Marine back with its right hand, the host lifted up its left hand to form a massive claw-

-which dropped in a haze of blood as Shepard's omniblade passed cleanly through the host's wrist. Pivoting in place, the Marine reached his holstered Varren Fang knife even as he swiped his omniblade through his enemy's face. The creature dodged the worst of the strike, but the mass effect-enhanced weapon gouged a gory furrow through one cheek and its left shoulder. Magog roared in pain and fury, throwing Shepard backwards with its remaining claw while its other arm bent to re-attach its stump.

Caught in the open with his twin melee weapons out again, Shepard backed into a classic two-handed fighting stance. Predictably, Lartessa stretched out her hand towards him with some spell in mind; the Marine pulled his arms apart to phase through matter, watching dispassionately as the lightning bolt passed harmlessly through him, before biotically flinging himself at Saluriel. The demon, caught mid-spellcast, was sent stumbling backwards as two hundred kilos of angry Marine quickly rearranged its priorities.

Slicing his twin weapons forward in a speedy two-handed routine, Shepard pressed Saluriel away from the other Denarians. As his helmet's proximity alarm warned him of movement behind, the Marine spun and ducked the inevitable swipe from Magog before punching a Pull out at the surprised demon. Swinging his Fang and omniblade in a wide circle, Shepard temporarily hamstrung both demons before dodging backwards as they inevitably regenerated.

As Magog and Saluriel coordinated and pressed the Marine on both sides, Shepard's weariness began to show. His blades slowed, and the N operative grunted in pain as one of Magog's scything claws caught him in the midsection. Forced back again by the two demons, the Marine sidestepped before Pulling the gorilla-like Magog into Saluriel. A lunge to the right, and Lartessa's lightning crackled harmlessly where his head had just been. Shepard desperately rose from his semi-crouch, half a second too late to avoid Magog's massive paw slapping him across the chest. Tossed backwards by the blow, the armored human skidded across grass and sidewalk to crash heavily against the smoldering SUV.

"You look tasty, little human," the brutish Denarian whispered, slobbering with anticipation. "I'll crack your little shell and feast on your bones. You'll wish you'd never travel-"

**Bzzzzzzt.**

It sounded like nothing more than sheets of ripping cloth. It was a constant snarl, an unending buzz that would deafen an unprotected ear, and its roar accompanied the meaty smacks of bullets impacting flesh. Murphy and Tilly, their twin machine guns braced against the side of the Denarians' SUV, fired nonstop at the monsters.

The weapons kept up a constant rate of fire, as the high-velocity rounds punched through armor and sent the two weaker demons sprawling. Magog tried to resist, but was shoved backwards by the volume of metal hurled at him and slowly hammered into the dirt. Tilly kept firing as Murphy stopped to 'reload' by dropping her weapon and grabbing another from the SUV's trunk.

Shepard barely noticed their life-or-death struggle. His attention was locked on Lartessa, who had grabbed the shadowy figure from inside and hauled him into the open. As the disheveled man pleaded incoherently, the Denarian almost carelessly gutted him before throwing the man to the corner of the house's front porch and grabbing his discarded combat shotgun. Pointing the weapon at Shepard and scowling as it clicked on an empty magazine, she threw the useless gun at the Marine.

The N operative sidestepped to dodge the flying shotgun, slapping it aside with the flat of his machete. Feeling the ache of a biotics-induced migraine, Shepard gritted his teeth and spread his arms wide to Charge again. Recognizing the gesture, Lartessa dodged behind one of the pillars holding up the porch's roof. Her quick thinking didn't save her from flying backwards, as Shepard simply phased through the solid oak pillar before slamming into the surprised sorcerer. Sent flying backwards, Lartessa grabbed a short sword from her belt to parry Shepard's Fang swipe; an analytical portion of the Marine's mind noticed that the weapon looked remarkably similar to an ancient Roman gladius. Ignoring the Denarian's silenced pistol in her left hand, whose bullets sparked uselessly off of his k-bars, Shepard pressed his temporary advantage against the demon host. Deflecting the steel gladius with his Fang, Shepard braced his opponent's weapon in place for a second as he chopped across with his omni-blade.

The glowing omni-blade sliced cleanly through the steel gladius with a metallic_ ting!_ Tossing her broken weapon at the Marine, Lartessa leapt backwards over the porch before yelling several words in a language which Shepard didn't recognize. The two demons on the front lawn, their blood staining the manicured grass red, turned and bolted from the two humans. Shedding bullets from their skin with a constant metallic clanging, Magog and Saluriel ignored the desultory fire which Murphy sprayed towards them and sprinted towards Lartessa. The demon-host shouted again while holding her right arm high, and the three Denarians vanished with a faint _pop!_ of displaced air.

From his vantage point on the quietly burning front porch, Shepard surveyed the traumatized neighborhood. Tilly's 'rapist van' was crumpled against the Denarian's black SUV, both cars gently smoldering in the dawn light. Red blood sparkled merrily among the morning dew, and patches of grass showed scorch marks from Lartessa's lightning or the hail of supersonic lead or hypervelocity mass-effected bullets. The tall and thin FBI agent trudged slowly up the stained front walk, his suit jacket torn and scorched by the car crash. Murphy trailed behind Tilly, the short woman's blond hair hidden underneath a baseball cap and a machine gun braced on her shoulder.

The disheveled and broken man at Shepard's feet croaked, "Wait, how're you still alive?"

Shepard glanced down at the dying man, kneeling to face him. "Luck, plus a bad call on her part. Mostly luck, though."

Tilly's and Murphy's eyes went wide as they stepped onto the porch. The dying man coughed and muttered, "Hey, Murph. Sorry about...everything, I guess."

Murphy gasped. "Rudolph, you fucker, you...damnit, what happened?"

"I-I..." Rudolph gasped for air, his eyes glassy, before focusing on Murphy. "Listen to me. Stove, broiler pan, turn off the pilot light so the incendiary doesn't go. Find-" he spasmed in pain, whimpering incoherently.

"Find? Find what?" Tilly asked urgently, his eyes sweeping out towards their impromptu perimeter. Shepard ignored him, evaluating Rudolph's torn windpipe and fatal injuries before unholstering his pistol.

"Shepard, what are you-" The Marine cut off Murphy's question with a wave, pulling his helmet off and looking the dying man in the eyes.

Rudolph wheezed again, sucking in air desperately, before gasping out "Papers. Insurance policy," he stopped, coughing up flecks of blood, before continuing, "Code 14552." The cop stared at Murphy as his right hand slowly drew up towards her. "Murph...sorry."

Murphy lowered her weapon to hold Rudolph's hand, closing her eyes as she did. Rudolph looked between Shepard, the operative's drawn pistol, and the unasked question in his eyes for several seconds before nodding and gurgling, "Thanks."

After the roar of battle, the single gunshot felt muted to the three survivors on the porch. Murphy and Tilly still jumped at the noise, swinging their weapons to aim at the kneeling Marine. "Jesus!" Tilly exclaimed. "What the hell was that for?"

"Mercy kill," Shepard grunted irritably, grabbing his gear from the front of the ruined house. "Intel to grab. Let's go."

"Hell no." Tilly's voice sounded shaky, but he kept his pilfered weapon pointed determinedly at the black-armored Marine. "Murphy, he just killed a uniformed police officer. We're taking him in."

Ten years ago, faced with an armed challenge by an ignorant former gangbanger in his unit, Second Lieutenant Shepard had responded quickly and violently. Ten years of war later, the Marine couldn't find the energy to care. With a similar threat facing him, the Marine stood passively and simply waited for the agent's nerve to falter. The two stood in a momentary standoff, one of them hopelessly outmatched but both of them too stubborn to yield.

Two hands, unarmed and spread wide, went between the two fighters. Murphy pushed Shepard and Tilly away from each other, straining with exertion to shove the two tall men back. "Not now. You," she said with a nod towards Tilly, "ask me later. And _you_," with a jerk of her head towards Shepard, "had damn well better _talk_." The Marine grunted in reply.

"Alright," Murphy said, lowering her hands and looking around at the devastation, "we've got cleanup to do. Tilly, you're with me. Let's find that insurance policy. Shepard, you're anonymous inside that armor, so get to breaking stuff. Make sure anything with fingerprints or DNA traces goes up in smoke, understood?" Both men nodded, sparing a glare for the other before turning to their respective jobs.

Outside, the wail of police sirens broke the tentative calm.

* * *

><p>Tilly was a laconic man, with a few basic principles that he held dear. He preferred to explain matters in five words instead of twenty, to avoid reporters like the plague, and to listen instead of speaking. It was a useful policy which had saved him from many a press conference, and at this moment it was failing him utterly.<p>

"Murphy, I just watched him kill a cop. That's the sort of thing which you don't just ignore. What's going on, Murph? What happened to you?"

Murphy snorted in disbelief. "What happened to me? Why, Agent Barry Tilly, _absolutely fucking nothing_ happened to me! Clearly, watching your feddies get eaten by fucking vampires doesn't bother me a bit, and seeing a mercy kill is a-fucking-OK in my little world! And when I have to stand and watch good people get burned, or drowned, or stabbed, or fucking _destroyed_ by the system I've sworn to protect, I just give a little Stepford grin and keep on trucking!" She ended her tirade with a fevered grin and a swing of her hand. "So yeah, nothing's wrong with me at all!"

Tilly took a deep breath, steadying himself on the kitchen's granite countertop. "Murph, we both know how bad it looks out there. They're still pulling bodies out from my office, and I've got more people than I care to count in the ICU. But that man out there just shot a police officer, Murph. It might have been a mercy killing, it might have been that slimebag Rudolph, but he broke the law, and we both swore an oath to bring men like him to justice."

Murphy gave Tilly that same crazed grin. "Didn't you hear, Barry? I'm retired." She grabbed the manila folder and walked out of the room, leaving the FBI agent alone in the smoke-filled house.

* * *

><p>"Explosion in thirty. You coming?"<p>

Not for the first time, Murphy wondered what the hell had happened. She'd just gotten herself suspended on half-pay, a step away from getting thrown off the force. Her job was her life, no questions asked: losing it would be like losing an arm. An officer with half a grain of sense would lay low, schmooze the right Powers that Be of the Chicago PD, and avoid doing anything stupid.

She was standing inside a dead cop's house, sprinkling his corpse with gasoline alongside someone 'from the future' with magic superpowers prepared a fuze. There were probably other things she could do to get herself arrested faster, but Murphy had already shot up an FBI building and invaded another country the day before; doing it again the next day would be far too repetitive. "You sure it won't spread?" she asked, cursing inside at her quavering voice.

"It's me," Shepard said grumpily. "Just the one house. No Kralla fires today."

She shook her head at that, walking out the back door with her armored headache in tow. Tilly joined her, the agent's gun held loosely but still pointed at Shepard. The house rumbled on its foundations as gouts of fire shot from its doors and windows. Tilly, Murphy, and Shepard walked away slowly from the splinter-filled hot air rolling past them as the tract house's rear windows blew out in a haze of glass. Rudolph's home collapsed in on itself, the wooden frame catching fire from the propane burning merrily in the kitchen.

"Wind holding steady, local PD and FD inbound, fire's contained. Told you I'm good at blowing shit up. Give me the guns," Shepard ordered.

"Wait, what?" Tilly didn't aim at Shepard again, but the agent turned and steadied his stolen machinegun, several moments too slow for Shepard. From Murphy's perspective, Shepard's hands seemed to blur as they shot up and grabbed the heavy weapon from Tilly's hands with a quick hip twist. Holding the gun up, Shepard dented it across his knee with a single swipe before dropping the ruined weapon on the ground. "My gun now."

Murphy sighed. "Shepard, you realize that you could've explained things before resorting to 'Shepard SMASH' ways of fixing problems?" Turning to Tilly, who'd already drawn his service pistol, she announced, "The guns are traceable. We need to dispose of them cleanly - DNA, fingerprints, the whole nine yards - and I bet Shepard's got some way of doing it."

Tilly frowned, but lowered his gun. "Is this the part where he taps his heels together and says 'Abracadabra?'"

"Quit mixing your folklore together, Barry, it'll get you killed in this business. Shepard," Murphy asked to the King of Antisocial Behavior, "please tell me you've got something to make my current headache go away."

Shepard said nothing, but simply held out a hand. Murphy slapped her own stolen machine gun into it, draping a belt of ammunition over the top. He tossed the incriminating evidence into a pile, before stepping back and raising his fist. Murphy unconsciously took a step back, already guessing what came next.

Even having seen it in action, Shepard's "biotics" were a frightening sight. His body glowed in an unnatural purple haze; Murphy could feel her teeth aching as the curling arcs of energy came too close for comfort. The mnemonic gesture drew the ambient energy towards his raised hand, and the cop watched in semi-stunned amazement as the power curled around his fist. He punched forward, and a 3-square-foot patch of dirt stopped obeying the laws of physics.

Murphy and Tilly watched in gaping horror as reality became temporarily unmade. The two machine guns shifted and twisted as gravity ripped them to shreds. Bullets flew away wildly, a twisted hunk of metal arcing past the two unarmored humans as they both reflexively flinched. The ground underneath rumbled like in an earthquake, and the brush deformed and snapped under the purple light.

As the haze cleared, the humans got their first good look at the weapons. The two guns were barely recognizable hunks of metal, each one twisted and ripped like it was made of Play-Doh. "Let's go," Shepard ordered after a quick glance. "Won't be getting anything useful out of that."

"What the hell was that?" asked Tilly warily, bringing up the rear. Murphy made sure to keep herself between the two in case they decided to go for a third face-off, but thankfully (thankfully!) the nearby sirens had made them careful.

"Warp," Shepard answered succinctly. "Biotics. Useful."

"And on humans?" Tilly challenged.

"Messy." Shepard seemed to consider the question. "Also, good reflexes. Lead 'em more than with krogan."

"What?"

"Right, no krogan yet. Umm...crocodiles with shotguns."

_"What?"_

Murphy laughed. "This conversation has taken a turn for the totally bizarre. Shepard, more on your evil space Klingons later. Tilly, he's...it's complicated."

"You don't say," Tilly muttered dryly.

The three professionals sped up their footsteps down the forest path as the _whud-whud-whud_ of a helicopter sounded in the distance.

* * *

><p>Murphy had never been happier to see her house. The squat, comfortable building had a covered garage, perfect for hiding armored superhumans from the general public. Shepard peeled himself slowly out of the car's trunk, sparing a glance at the quiet suburban neighborhood, as the two exhausted humans headed inside.<p>

"Shepard, we need to talk. Molly is missing, we've got the Paranet line ringing off the hook, and-"

"Food."

"-we need to investigate-"

"Food."

"Seriously?"

"Food. Now." It took a moment for Murphy to snap out of her panicked thoughts and to get a real look at Shepard.

To put it bluntly, he looked like shit. The hulking Marine collapsed bonelessly into a kitchen chair, his head falling onto the table and sending her dinner plates rattling. His eyes were sunken from lack of sleep; his armored hands trembled slightly under the light of the kitchen lights. Shepard's eyes were locked on the front door, even in a relatively safe zone, and sweat beaded on his shaved head.

"I'll get something," Murphy said haltingly. "I, do you want something to drink?"

"I'm still drunk," Shepard giggled, resting his head on his hands. Truly, Murphy decided, there were few things more frightening than one of the most dangerous men she'd ever met giggling like a five-year-old. "Drained the Padre's scotch. Good shit."

Murphy opened her mouth to answer, then shut it with a click of teeth. It took her a few seconds to gather her thoughts again: "So, the whole car-surfing, wall-smashing bit was-"

"Actually pretty normal. Just feels weirder when you're drunk. Also, gunship-surfing is worse."

"You know, I really can't think of a good answer for that one."

"Probably best that way. Didn't end well."

Murphy grabbed the bowl of leftover chili from the refrigerator, only distantly noticing how badly her own hands shook. Ladling the cold food straight into bowls, she and Shepard ate quickly and quietly; she only noticed how much they'd consumed when she saw Shepard scraping the bottom of the bowl.

"Damn," she said softly. The Marine let out an ear-splitting belch in reply. After a moment of mutually stunned silence, they both burst out laughing. The shock, fear, and stress of the past night seemed to evaporate in the early dawn light, as they both laughed hysterically for what felt like hours. Wiping tears from her eyes, Murphy let out a drawn-out yawn and laughed again as Shepard did the same.

Rubbing her eyes, Murphy said "I've got a spare bedroom down the hall. Don't shoot the lights out, please."

He let out a tired chuckle at that, and Murphy watched the armored giant barely squeeze his shoulders into the hallway as he headed towards her guest room. Shaking her head despondently, Murphy hesitated for a moment before dropping into the seat Shepard had just vacated. Holding a mug of stale coffee from that eternity ago, yesterday, Murphy tried to piece her mind back together.

It was probably a sign of how much her life had been smashed into pieces that she even let a self-admitted murderer she'd met a few hours ago room at her house. Up was down, good was bad, practically every friend she knew was either dead or not speaking to her, and her closest ally at the moment was multiple kinds of insane.

Clutching the cup of coffee like a lifeline, Murphy sat and watched the sunrise.

* * *

><p>Agent Barry Tilly sat on a park bench and fed breadcrumbs to ducks.<p>

His office was in shambles. He had literal mountains of paperwork to sift through. His phone hadn't stopped chirping its endlessly optimistic ringtone since this morning, interrupted only by the ding! of new texts or voicemails. He would guess that it was his secretary Mary nagging him again, except that he'd seen Mary disemboweled and half-eaten by one of those _Things_ as they went through his office. He let the recorded songbird's voice ring away as he tossed bits and pieces of bread to a small swarm of ducks at his feet.

He couldn't sleep. He couldn't work. He couldn't drink, or speak to a friend, or even eat. Several ducklings, still shedding fuzz, worked over the discarded bagel of his attempted breakfast. His eyes staring ahead but seeing nothing, Tilly ripped shreds of bread apart with mechanical precision.

"Bad weather for ducks."

Whirling in place on the park bench, his right hand ducking into his jacket for his service revolver, Tilly stopped as he felt a tap on his elbow. Giving a slight grin, the newcomer lowered his walking cane before carefully lowering himself onto the bench alongside the FBI agent.

The man wore jeans, a flannel shirt, and the most honest face Tilly had ever seen. He adjusted his crippled leg outward, propping his cane up on the side of the bench before turning to look at the FBI agent again.

"My car lost a tire," he said to answer Tilly's unsaid question, hooking a thumb behind him at a parked pickup truck.

"I...why?" the agent said, his voice cracking from disuse.

"Weather like this is too hot for them," the man said, peering at the ducks swarming at his feet. "It dries out the ground, and makes it tougher for them to get weeds."

"You-no, who are you?" Tilly felt his right hand itching for his pistol again.

"The name's Michael Carpenter," the man said with a grin, holding out his right hand. Slowly, hesitantly, Tilly took his own hand away from his gun for the handshake. "I heard about your office," the man said without a trace of humor, "and you have my condolences. I'm sorry for your loss."

Tilly had never heard anything more sincere. "Thank you," he said slowly, stumbling over the familiar words. "I just wish I knew what, or how, or just why everything happened." He'd fallen down the rabbit hole, and Wonderland was a frightening place once you realized how close it was. Vampires, demons, and who-in-the-literal-Hell knew what else waited in the shadows, unseen and unknown.

"An investigator, yes?" Michael chuckled. "I've known one or two men like you before, Mr. Tilly."

"How do you know my name?" the agent asked tersely, tensing up and looking for backup.

"Easy, friend," Michael said, "I swear that I mean no harm to you or anyone you know." Tilly almost felt nervous at the absolute, iron-clad truth in his voice. No one was this totally, utterly sincere with him, or anyone else.

The agent eyed the miniature crucifix around Carpenter's neck. "A friend of Murphy's?" he asked hesitantly.

"Indeed," Michael responded gently. "And of Dresden, too, for what good it did him." Carpenter closed his eyes in silent misery. Belatedly, the agent realized that the man beside him had lost friends yesterday as well.

They sat in silence for a minute, each one miserable but neither willing to speak. For the life of him, Tilly couldn't understand why he opened his mouth again. "How?" he asked. "How do you keep going after something like this?"

"There are days, my friend, when it's too dark to see the light. There are days when you wish you were dead, and some days in which you might be. There are nights of terror and horror, stretches of doubt, and times when, no matter your efforts, you fail anyway." The man's hand unconsciously drifted towards his crippled thigh. Tilly waited silently for him to continue.

"Yet no matter the obstacle, you are strong enough," Carpenter continued determinedly. "No matter the road, you can walk it. Agent Tilly, you believe that you are too weak;_ truly I tell you, you're stronger than you know._" Tilly shivered, despite the hot sun overhead.

The man sighed, and the Presence which had hovered above him moments before vanished into the breeze. Slowly levering himself upright, Michael Carpenter ambled away towards his car.

"Wait!" Tilly blurted out. As Carpenter turned, a sad grin on his face, the agent asked, "How?"

Michael gave a more genuine smile. "Have a little faith!" Pausing to consider his next words, he added, "And don't forget to feed the ducks!"

Tilly looked at the departing man for a moment, before dropping his gaze and tossing the bread aside. As the ducks scrambled towards the food, Agent Tilly of the FBI grabbed his chirping phone from its holster, fishing in his pocket for his car keys. He'd get something to eat on the way to the office.

The stories were true. Vampires stalked the streets, werewolves changed at the full moon, demons worked to tempt and corrupt men.

But the stories had heroes, too: men with bright swords and shining armor, who went into the dark to slay dragons. Somehow, with a certainty he couldn't trace, Tilly knew that he'd just met one.

* * *

><p>It wasn't a particularly dark, or even stormy, night when Shepard woke up. The clock on the wall said 9, and the Marine reminded himself to set his omnitool clock by Earth-standard instead of Citadel-standard time. Slowly yawning and stretching, having taken the opportunity to get out of and clean his armor, Shepard felt infinitely better as he padded through the quiet house.<p>

Murphy had clearly set herself on watch duty, but the living room seat she'd chosen for a chair was far too comfortable. Her head rolled to the left, and her snores echoed through the small house. Grinning as a happy memory struck him, Shepard silently walked up behind the sleeping woman before carefully adjusting her head and shoulders. Shifted into a more natural position, Murphy turned slightly in her sleep before relaxing into a quiet slumber.

Barely catching himself from whistling at the impressive Japanese swords over the mantle, Shepard grabbed the same cup of cold coffee that Murphy had been sipping, draining it in one gulp. Wincing as the police-strength coffee slapped him awake, he quickly rooted around for something edible in the kitchen before absconding with a loaf of bread and a pack of turkey meat.

Sitting on the front porch, watching the red sunset as he shoveled food into his mouth, Shepard wondered again how he'd ended up here. Earth, pre-First Contact! Giant fishmen, half-leopard teleporting things, and literal demons from Hell seemed almost mundane next to the sheer insanity of when he was. He could accept the galaxy being a fairly strange place, after all; he'd worked alongside alien birds and lived for months on a 50-kilometer space station.

_Feet_, he mentally reminded himself. A quick omnitool-check had informed him that he still had to translate meters to understand the rest of the local population, to say nothing of pounds or "degrees Fahrenheit," whatever the hell _those_ were. Faeries and angels and demons, oh my, along with anything and everything that the old myths mentioned. From the sounds of it, he had quite a bit of reading to catch up on.

"Recon, ooh-rah," Shepard grunted quietly to himself. He'd make it here. He'd-

The impromptu turkey sandwich fell onto the sidewalk as the Marine scrambled to his feet, his right hand grasping for the pistol tucked at the small of his back. Something was moving on the lawn, becoming more visible as the sun's light faded. It looked like mist, but it was far more coherent than any natural water vapor that Shepard had ever seen. It had purpose and direction, and for the moment it wavered on the sidewalk outside Murphy's home.

Scanning the perimeter, Shepard quickly picked out two more indistinct shapes hovering in the twilight. His pistol out but hidden at his side to avoid unwanted attention, Shepard kept his eyes forward as he yelled.

"MURPHY! FRONT AND CENTER! WE GOT GHOSTS!"


	12. Chapter 12: Shepard

"God, I know we haven't spoken in a while-"

_Perimeter's compromised, contacts front, expect hostiles in backdoor assault-_

"-but I've got a teeny tiny request for you."

_Grab pistol, fit flash suppressor, heavy gear's still packed-_

"The whole 'lots of things trying to eat my soul' gig isn't that bad-"

_Move to Shepard's six, cover from doorway-_

"-but could I have a day with no one trying to kill me?"

_Nothing visible, then again it's ghosts, how'd he see them wait why's he looking at me-_

_Oh, right. Pants._

Murphy was grateful that the doorway hid most of her body. Before she'd sat down and closed her eyes "just for a second," she'd put her more-dirt-than-cloth pants in the washer. Now, wearing nothing but a shirt and skivvies, she really wished she'd taken the time earlier to hunt around for a pair of sweats.

"Evenin', ma'am," Shepard greeted her with a short glance, before his eyes flicked outward again. "Dressed to impress?"

"You _bastard_," she hissed. "And where are those fucking ghosts you were yelling about?"

"Three contacts total, closest a meter left of your mailbox. You got a visual?" Shepard asked tonelessly, his unfolded pistol steady next to his hip.

"I can't see ghosts, not without help," Murphy answered a moment later. "And how can you see them anyway?" An irreverent thought reminded her that she was trusting the judgment of a man who'd probably never seen a real ghost in his life.

"No idea," Shepard responded. "Sure as shit looks like 'em, though." He cocked his head to the side. "Know anything else looks like mist, hovers around, cold as-_ohfuck!_" He ducked, scrambling to the right as he brought his weapon up.

Murphy trained her Sig Sauer on the same area, although she knew that the metal bullets wouldn't do much to inconvenience the ghost doubtlessly hovering there. "Hey, there," she began uncertainly. "What's up?"

"Sitrep?" Shepard asked, his voice faint. Murphy ignored him, her mind racing. "I know you want something, but none of us can communicate with you. Is there," she trailed off as a sudden thought struck here. "Hold here, Shepard." Quickly running inside, Murphy made a quick detour to the laundry room before grabbing a bag of flour from the kitchen and shaking it over her front step. Stifling a momentary laugh at the sight of a cop flinging white powder around, she pointed at the doorstep. "Write."

"Murph?" The marine's voice shook slightly. Murphy glanced over at him as she dressed quickly, surprised to see the taciturn giant showing any emotion whatsoever. "Shepard, it's a ghost," she said briskly, as the powder flattened itself out as though smoothed by an invisible hand. "Wait, are you _scared_ of it?"

"No," Shepard said immediately. "Yes. Crap."

"Don't worry, then, I'll be here to keep the big bad ghosts away," Murphy snickered. "Want me to turn the nightlight on and get you some warm milk and cookies, too?"

"Fuck you."

Letting out another laugh, Murphy watched her front porch as the invisible hands made letters in the flour. "Mort-" Shepard read slowly, trailing off in confusion. It took Murphy a moment longer to recognize the word.

"Load for bear. We leave in two," she ordered curtly, beckoning the Marine in and shutting the door.

"Bear?" Shepard asked quizzically, before his expression suddenly cleared. "Oh, right. Plan?"

"Bring everything, expect anything. We're securing a home of a local contact, and we need him alive. That means _no shooting people you don't like_, understood?"

"But what if I _really_ don't like them?" Shepard asked as he grabbed his discarded gear from Murphy's guest room.

Murphy stopped short in the hallway. "Did you just crack a joke?"

The Marine's face popped out of the door for a second. His face stone-cold steady, Shepard replied, "Maybe."

Murphy shook her head. "Don't pull that shit again. You're freaky enough when you're...you."

Shepard's voice echoed behind her as Murphy went to grab her gear. "Me?"

Grabbing her bloody and dirty tac gear, guns, and on-the-run first aid kit, Murphy tried to guess out the conversational landmines waiting here. "You know, a giant armored soldier from the future with freaky space magic and no conversational skills."

The Marine was waiting for her as she left her room, most of his armor and weapons already in place. Shepard pumped his fist to create a massive purple halo around it, saying simply, "Biotics."

"Freaky space magic," Murphy snapped. Someone she knew was in trouble, and she didn't have time for this. Shepard blocked her way, and much as her instincts screamed at her to push the bastard and get moving, she realized that trying to move two hundred-something pounds of man-mountain wouldn't end too well.

"Biotics," Shepard repeated, his face still. "Trust me, Murph."

_Trust_, Murphy realized in a moment of clarity. She still didn't trust this...intruder, this replacement, if she was being honest with herself. He wouldn't stab her in the back, or in her sleep, but she didn't know him and didn't really believe him. She knew, without a shred of doubt, that Shepard showing up seconds after...after the shooting wasn't a coincidence. He showed up one day and turned her world upside down, he had artifacts and abilities and did things she couldn't explain, he broke every rule she held dear and she somehow respected him for it anyway...

He was too damn familiar to who she'd lost, in other words. "Understood," she replied curtly, not trusting her own voice to betray her. "Let's go."

* * *

><p>Fitz saluted the Commander the moment he saw him.<p>

He didn't know what the hell a "commander" was. He'd never seen an actual salute aside from that one time at the Independence Day parade. He'd never seen or heard of the Commander before in his life.

Yet the music played for him, and Fitz knew to follow his ear. He stood still and silent, holding an unfamiliar gesture for an unfamiliar man, as the two people walked up the steps to the ghost guy's house. The woman looked at him like he'd grown another head, but the Commander stopped in his tracks to return the salute. Feeling like a massive weight had lifted from his chest, Fitz barely resisted the urge to run back inside.

"You know what that means, son?" asked the Commander as he pointed to his hand.

"No idea, sir," Fitz said softly.

"Respect. You respect me, I respect you. Goes both ways. You got a name?"

"Fitz, sir," he answered hesitantly.

"Fitz," Shepard mused out loud. "Means 'son of.' You got a family? Got a father?"

He thought of dead Aristedes, the abuse and the bullying barely masked by the talk of "parenting," and barely resisted the urge to spit. "Nossir." He waited for the useless "sorry," the damn pity and bullshit the grown-ups always gave him for it-

Shepard's gaze stayed steady. "Gonna give you a little secret, Fitz. What you belong to, _who_ you belong to - that's what really matters. You got people like that?"

Fitz straightened up, nodding sincerely. The Commander gave a feral grin. "Looks like you got a family after all, Fitz." The Commander looked him over, appraising. "Why're you here, son?"

"Our old boss got killed," Fitz said, his grin matching the Commander's at the thought of Aristedes dead. The old bastard had been fast, but the shadow was faster. "The shadow told me to leave, the voices told me to come here, and after I did," he shrugged, "well, the music started playing when I saw you."

"Fair enough, son." The Commander nodded, although he seemed doubtful.

"Commander, they-," Fitz struggled to put the words into English, "they told me, 'trust the outlander, break the tower.' Nothin' more, just that. They've never been real specific about things, but they ain't ever been wrong, either."

"Trust the outlander, break the tower? Real fucking help that is," the Commander said, shrugging. "Not your fault though, Fitz. Rest easy; you earned it."

* * *

><p>The old oak porch creaked under their footsteps, and a quick gust of summer wind shot through as Shepard pushed the front door open.<p>

Murphy could remember a time when Mort's house was a tourist trap, full of gimmicks like crystal balls and faked pentagrams to bilk the unwary out of their pocket change. In truth, though she'd bitched about the obvious lie it represented, Murphy hadn't minded the old decor. Mort had been a quack, possibly intriguing but mostly harmless. Walking into his place felt like going into the haunted house ride at Disneyland.

Now? She didn't so much see the ancient house as _feel _it in her bones, a deep ache of memories and moments built up over centuries until the air seemed choked with them.

Insubstantial whispers tickled at the edge of her hearing, and the hairs at the back of her neck stood on end. A slight wind whistled at their backs, though the summer air was still. This was a house for the dead, and it felt like it.

"Okay, what the _hell_ was that all about?" Murphy asked she stepped forward, followed hesitantly by the hulking Marine. Although Mort's place might creep her out, that kid was even freakier somehow.

"Not sure," Shepard said, pulling out his shotgun. "Was a Lt. Commander back in my time. Hadn't got promoted yet."

"Creepy people who know too much. Welcome to the home of the dead guy," Murphy quietly muttered to herself.

"Dead guy?" Shepard asked warily.

"How did you even hear that?" Murphy said, confused. She'd barely heard herself say it!

"Gene mods," the Marine responded curtly. "Now, dead guy?"

"Mortimer Lindquist, ghost whisperer," she answered. "A bunch of them live here, which is probably why he had some of them call us." She continued, a little maliciously, "Just think! We've probably got dozens, maybe even hundreds of ghosts swimming around us right this moment!" Murphy glanced over at Shepard, and felt a little bad at seeing him grit his jaw and draw a deep, shuddering breath.

"Murph! Thank God you're-_what the Hell?_" The sudden shout came from a small, stocky man in black - Mortimer Linquist, the spooks' spook. He had his customary black robes on, which Murphy suspected he wore simply to ease up on the cleaning costs, and a less customary look of utter shock. Murphy wearily followed his white-faced gaze towards her erstwhile companion

On second thought, she realized, Shepard could be _intimidating_. Over the past day, she'd gotten so used to an armored space marine following her around that she'd practically blanked the weirdness out. Then again, considering how much weirdness she normally ran into during her day and night jobs, this was probably a good survival tactic.

"That's Shepard. Don't be sc-...actually, be nervous around him; it sounds like a good way to stay alive," Murphy answered, waving her hand. "Think of him like a big, sociopathic puppy. With a shotgun."

Mort scowled. "Murphy, you're _really_ not reassuring me right now."

"I'm a Special Investigations cop. If me showing up makes you reassured, then your life must be pretty FUBAR." She frowned, thinking. "In fact, why did you send a ghost to call me, Mort? And what's with creepy kid out front?"

The short ectomancer's eyes widened in surprise. "Call you with a ghost? Murphy, I have a _telephone_. If I really needed help, I'd send you a text instead of hoping that a ghost would get you right now instead of getting distracted for half a decade."

Shepard spoke up: "Ghosts showed up at her place. Reasons?"

Mort's eyes narrowed. "I didn't send anyone to you, Murphy. They might have gone on their own, or they might've been forced. Hell, they might be asking for help for something that'll happen two days from now. I'll ask around." He closed his eyes, massaging his temples. "Although while you're here, can you help me with the kids?"

"Kids?"

* * *

><p>"Shit."<p>

"C'mon! It's not _that_ bad!"

"For you, maybe."

"Did they surgically remove your sense of fun at space boot camp?"

"..._No_."

Murphy gave her first genuine laugh in what felt like forever at Shepard's death glare. The children - they weren't sure how or why they'd ended up here, anyway - had dove into the McDonalds Mort had ordered with the gusto of the truly famished. Almost absentmindedly brushing away a child trying to steal her wallet, Murphy shook her head at the sheer exuberance of the kids tearing around the tiny yard. It might be more than a little crazy, but they certainly did wonders in dispelling the perpetual doom and gloom that hung around Mort's house.

"Just get into the action! C'mon, put your left foot in, take your left foot out-"

"Nein."

Murphy giggled as she balanced precariously on her right leg, surrounded by half a dozen kids doing the same.

"-put your left foot in, and you shake it all about-"

"Nyet."

"You do the hokey-pokey and you turn yourself around-"

"_Please_, Murph._"_

"-and that's what it's all ab-"

"Stop." The cop glanced over to see Shepard glaring at a shivering child, his hand still hesitantly held forward towards the hulking Marine. She'd seen the same kid happy a moment ago, and Murphy felt her insides twisting as she put two and two together. Fear of male authority figures - _Shit, why didn't you spot it earlier!_

"Go inside," she said curtly in Shepard's direction, kneeling down at the young boy's level and carefully hugging him. The boy's facade dissolved into helpless tears, and Murphy held him as he sobbed uncontrollably into her shoulder. Shepard loomed over them both, and the cop wished that she could fry him with a proper glare.

"Shepard," Murphy said warningly. "Where are their parents?" She watched his impassive face go blank for a moment before going slack in surprise and understanding. He moved away soundlessly, and Murphy abandoned thoughts of bloody revenge against whatever _fucker_ would do this as she held the crying boy.

* * *

><p><em>Whirr-click.<em> The Avenger assault rifle quickly expanded outwards, the double frame extending while the rifle's scope popped out of storage. Gauntleted hands efficiently disassembled the stock, pulling a small cleaning kit out before continuing to break apart the gun.

A single foot carefully and silently stepped out onto the front porch. Another followed it, each one carefully spread apart to reduce the weight as they moved forward. Step followed step, each one silent across the polished oak floorboards. The only sounds were the dull rumble of faraway cars and the quiet scratches of the cleaning brush on metal. The two feet crept closer and closer until-

A gauntleted hand swept the hidden pistol up, steadying the massive gun in a bullseye stance. The shooter's head stayed riveted on the disassembled rifle in front of it, seemingly fascinated by the worn and battered weapon. "Don't try to sneak up on men with guns," rumbled Shepard.

"Hey, it didn't stop me before," Fitz responded before his brain could catch up with his mouth. He gulped as Shepard looked at him directly, the gun disappearing from his hand as if by magic. "Explain."

"My..." Fitz trailed off as he tried to explain what Aristedes had been to them, "we had to raid another gang. Show 'em we could hold our own turf. We needed respect." Despite himself, he could feel the stirrings of pride he'd felt then when his boys had went out together, when they'd snuck up on the 62nd Street bastards and put a hundred new holes in their place.

"Respect," Shepard said slowly, drawing the word out. "You shot up a pack of inner city gangers. That respect these days?"

Fitz swallowed the words waiting to erupt at the casual insult. Shepard nodded once as he saw the reaction. "Pride. Anger. A Jedi cares not for these things."

It took Fitz a moment to process the words, and another few seconds to compare them against Shepard's impassive face. He let out a strangled giggle, making Shepard's mask crack slightly, and as Fitz kept laughing Shepard's face slowly relaxed into a faint grin.

"You're, an, asshole," Fitz gasped out in between whoops of laughter. Shepard relaxed slightly, leaning back in his chair and waving his hand imperiously. "Kids these days, ain't got no respect for the classics." For a moment, the teen and the soldier simply sat and looked out over the dark front yard. Fitz had watched Shepard's screwup with Jake, and it took him a moment to find the right words to explain.

"I-" Fitz paused as his voice cracked. "I can't tell you what it was really like, with Aristedes. He'd be fine one day, then the next he'd be moving like he did and hitting Johnny and he just wouldn't stop. Then he'd talk family again and we'd be good a moment later, except we weren't. Then-" he trailed off, unable to continue.

"Come here," Shepard said quietly. Fitz walked over slowly, still wiping tears from his face, as Shepard pulled a dull black knife from a hidden sheath. "Elkoss Nightshade-patten blade," he said quietly, tilting the weapon so that it reflected the dim light from inside. "It'll cut steel, long as you don't mind losing the edge. You used a knife before, yeah?"

Fitz snorted. He was an Englewood kid; like he didn't know how to use a shank or something! Shepard nodded, holding the dull black knife up by its blade. He was on his feet in an instant, pivoting and chopping his hand down so fast that Fitz barely saw the knife fly. The weapon shot forward, burying itself in the wooden pillar ten feet away with a dull _thunk!_

"Practice," Shepard said simply as he walked over to retrieve it. "Practice makes better." He yanked the knife free, flipped it in his hand, and held it hilt-first out towards Fitz. "It's yours."

He didn't need the music to know how what this meant. Nodding in respect, Fitz carefully picked up the lethal weapon and watched it glint in the reflected moonlight. He turned to Shepard, his grin a mile wide, but faltered at the look on Shepard's face.

* * *

><p>Murphy followed the gunshots outside.<p>

Her hand on her Sig, she watched as Shepard fired at three targets downrange, a gaggle of kids watching as the massive Marine aimed down the sight of a pistol which would be compensation for anyone smaller.

_Thock! Thock! Thock!_ The sound was muted, a quiet noise next to the loud gunshots she'd heard from when Shepard had been firing at the Denarians. Each trash can lid rocked slightly as a low-velocity shot hit them; the kids cheered as Shepard fired again, each shot unerringly hitting its target.

Murphy leaned on a pillar on the back porch, watching as Shepard switched hands. Holding the gigantic pistol in his left hand, Shepard turned to the side before repeating the same exercise. Slowly walking and switching the weapon as he did, the operative kept steadily hitting each target with each new stance.

One of the kids, slightly larger than the others, grabbed a rock from the yard and threw it into the air. Shepard, barely missing a beat, tracked and fired as the stone rose above the group; the rock wobbled, clearly hit, before falling again. Shepard hit it again as it fell, before switching back to his targets. His face remained blank, a _tabula r__asa_ that Murphy recognized from earlier. Something had Shepard spooked.

"I can see the story," Murphy began in a light tone, waving her arms above her head as she stepped out into the backyard, "The grizzled veteran just wanted to retire...but the trash can lid mafia had other plans. They took his family from him...now he'll take their lives!" she finished with a grin and her best reverb voice.

"Was batarians killed my family," Shepard said, his face still blank as he stared her down. Murphy stopped in her tracks, wishing she could pry her foot from her mouth. He saw her look and shrugged in return. "Don't worry. Killed 'em back. Got to help when we went after their base camp. Fun times," he grunted, switching his gun stance again before repeating his shooting routine one-handed. Each shot connected with a _ping!_, the Chicago night strangely quiet.

Murphy tried to reorganize her thoughts. "Something's obviously got you rattled. Do you feel like talking about it?"

"Ghosts," Shepard cursed quietly. The pistol dropped to his side, his hand almost absentmindedly flicking the safety on as he did. "Just...ghosts. Started fighting in the front yard, the kid watching 'em like it was a football game, and..."

"Let me guess," Murphy finished for him. "You know of enough personal ghosts to be afraid of seeing them?" Shepard dropped his head in mute confirmation.

"Inside, kids," Murphy said to the assembled children, pointing at the eldest. "Make sure you pick up your trash, alright?" The children quickly cleared out, with only a few whispers between them.

"Personal ghosts?" the cop asked quietly after the children had left.

"Lots of 'em," Shepard whispered to himself. "Already an Eighter, Murph. Alliance crazy men, the go-to folks do you need some heads cracked. Been on psych eval for years, now, ain't a shrink out there would call me sane. Saw another Eighter said he could see ghosts, too, an' he's livin' in a padded room. What if I'm losin' it, now?"

Murphy swallowed. "Commander Shepard, if you truly go insane, I promise that I will do whatever it takes to stop you before," she trailed off, "before anything happens." She held out her hand. "You have my word."

Shepard glanced at her. "No. Ain't enough as is." He spun his pistol in his grip and held it out to her, the massive gun still folded out in its firing position. "Safety's here, dial-a-yield here. 'S on low now, just twist here to put holes in light armor or krogan." He stared at her levelly.

"Whatever it takes."

* * *

><p>"Shepard..." Murphy tried to imagine why the Marine, of all people, would be following her into a crime scene.<p>

"Yeah?"

Murphy cocked an eyebrow. "Why the hell are you here, anyway?"

Shepard shifted in place. "Creepy kid - Fitz - told me to come here. Said I'd need you."

"And?"

"I dressed for infil, left the heavy gear in your car. Also, you need a better lock."

Murphy let her voice raise slightly. "Aaand?"

"And I got bored. And freaked out." He scuffed his feet. "Oops."

Murphy groaned dramatically. "I'd bawl you out for leaving Mort's house defenseless, but you might have a point if creepy ghost kid said you should be here. While you're at it, come over here and have a look at the place."

Shepard obediently followed her past the Denny's at the corner, his eyes watching the crowd gathered around the well-lit diner. They walked down a deserted alleyway next to an abandoned warehouse, both of them consciously looking for threats hidden along the dimly-lit streets. Whatever "shadow" had killed Aristedes was obviously long gone, but Murphy liked taking a look at crime scenes for herself.

Shepard's helmet and the bulky guns on his back were apparently in her car, kept semi-safe by the occasional off-duty cop at the diner, but Murphy could spot the combat armor barely hidden by the Marine's ratty clothing.

"Is that a shotgun in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?" Murphy asked lightly.

"Both."

Murphy spun on her heel to stare up at Shepard, his face impassive save for a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth. "Your sarcasm is _inhuman_," she said petulantly. "One of these days, I'm going to make you laugh at your own jokes like a normal human being."

"Cold day in Hell, Murph. Cold day in Hell." Shepard walked past her, carefully looking at the door blasted off its hinges. "I don't know guns of this time too well. Your guess?"

Murphy took a look at the kids' old home. Their former leader, Aristedes, was weapons-grade bastard with bastard filling - and a minor talent at magic. He had been unnaturally quick, and perhaps charismatic as well, if the kids' stories were true.

Emphasis on "had." The corpse hung to dry outside the warehouse, pinned to the brick wall with an iron bar shoved through its stomach, made it fairly obvious what had happened to him. Aristedes was dead and soon to be buried - now it was a "whodunit" for the detectives to deal with. Murphy knelt down near the door, keeping her distance so as not to contaminate the scene. "Those aren't gun blasts," she announced after a short pause. "Take a look - the impact marks don't match up with a shell or bullet, and there's no scorch marks from an explosive or shaped charge. It looks like a direct physical impact, although I can't think of a ram which could do this."

"Nope." Shepard almost seemed smug as he leaned back and crossed his arms. "Alliance door-breach protocol, if it's weak enough, is just punch it out. Done it before; I know the signs." He whistled softly. "Strong bastard, whatever it was."

"_What_ever?" Murphy asked. "Could you have done this?"

"Yeah," Shepard responded sourly. "'Course, how many Systems Alliance soldiers be runnin' around in ancient history?" He looked behind them, his hand drifting towards his concealed shotgun. "Murph, on your five, do you see-" The bullet cut him off mid-sentence, that weird purple barrier flaring and dying in an instant as blood flew from his left temple. The _crack!_ of the bullet's passing hit a moment later, almost muted compared to the crumpling soldier in front of her.

Murphy reacted on instinct as the hulking Marine started to fall. Slamming into Shepard's chest, Murphy put a foot past the collapsing soldier before hefting him over her right hip. Quickly hooking her right arm around Shepard's waist as she shifted her weight to balance him above her center of gravity, she reached above her head to yank Shepard's head over her left shoulder. With an adrenaline-fueled step, the tiny cop stepped forward with the massive armored soldier draped in a classic fireman's carry.

One step forward. She ignored the next gunshot, focused on the alley's exit as the bullet hit Shepard and the semi-conscious Marine grunted in pain. Two steps forward. She snarled as the Marine tried to stand himself upright, causing her to stumble to the left. Shepard's head impacted the brick wall, and he immediately fell limp. Three steps forward. Murphy cursed and tried to rebalance herself as another bullet whizzed by to her right.

Four steps forward. Murphy could feel the Marine's armor slowly ripping her coat apart as the Marine slid slowly off, and jumped in place to keep the body steady. Five steps forward. The chipped alleyway corner beckoned, promising a temporary illusion of safety. Six steps forward. The dull _wham!_ of another sniper bullet seemed almost muted, probably from one of Shepard's magic bullet-deflect thingies, but the impact still threw her forward. Seven steps forward. Eight. Nine. Ten.

Slowly spinning to the left to move Shepard's head past the chipped brick, Murphy studiously ignored the blood decorating the ground as she rounded the corner. "Move! Get inside!" she yelled at the civilians standing outside the Denny's diner, dimly amazed at how quickly they'd shifted in her mind from "citizens" to "targets." Staggering under the soldier's weight, she stepped steadily towards her Civic as the nearby civvies scattered.

The walk to her car took half a lifetime. Shepard groaned slightly as Murphy banged his head on the car's low roof, muttering disjointed sentences as the cop unceremoniously dumped him into the passenger seat. Seizing the backpack that the soldier had stowed under her car, Murphy tossed it onto Shepard's lap before sprinting to the driver's side door. A small-caliber bullet whizzed over her head as she ducked to fit the key in the door, and Murphy cursed as it embedded itself in the car's roof.

Murphy snatched her Sig from its holster, wishing that she'd taken Shepard's advice and brought his compensation pistol with her. With a round already chambered, she flicked the safety before firing twice at the unknown shooter. Snarling at the key still stuck in the door, she got lucky as the lock turned smoothly. Flinging the door open and throwing herself into the driver's seat, Murphy jammed the key into the ignition while quickly throwing the car into first gear.

"Hail Mary full of grace the lord is with thee hail o virgin-" Clearly, she'd have to bring cookies over to the Carpenters' place more often; the engine caught without a hitch as four men sprinted out from the alleyway the sniper had shot from, obviously the attackers' grab team to pick up the bodies. Murphy caught a glimpse of the nondescript men, each one dressed for obscurity and carrying pistols. Throwing the car into reverse, she ducked as two of the attackers started shooting at the windshield.

"Magnificat anima mea domin-_fuck!_" Murphy cursed as an SUV cut her off, a passenger firing an assault rifle at her rear window. Glass shattered as the bullets flew, but Shepard's armor stopped the shells from hitting them even as the soldier lay unconscious. Throwing the car into first gear, Murphy sped forward through the alleyway as the four men of the grab team scattered. Their small-caliber weapons didn't go through the side of her car, and the SUV couldn't follow down the cramped passageway.

"We're gonna lose them, Shepard. Hold on." Murphy knew that the Marine was lights-out and couldn't hear her, but she kept up her mantra as she sped towards St. Mary's, three cars in hot pursuit.

* * *

><p>"S'what? 'M gonna stop it this time. Ain't gonna get so bad, ain't gonna need ta fail-deadly. Y' hear-"<p>

"Shut up and move." With one of Shepard's arms draped over her shoulder, Murphy slowly staggered towards St. Mary's Church. She'd lost the pursuers for a moment in the nighttime Chicago traffic, but she already heard revving engines and didn't believe for a second that she'd completely lost them.

"In here," Murphy growled, shoving Shepard bodily into a tiny closet off of the foyer. "Shut up and live, damnit!" she hissed, more to herself than to Shepard. She'd grabbed the Marine's helmet, and she quickly fixed it in place on his armor even as Shepard lay motionless.

Tires screeched outside, and Murphy knew she was out of time. Shoving the door closed, she darted to a nearby window and watched surreptitiously as the two four-man teams spilled out of their cars, the third vehicle prowling by without stopping. As it slowed to yell orders to the other men, Murphy got a good look at the driver. She cursed quietly to herself as she spotted the same creature which had attacked them at Dresden's apartment.

Just like before, the _crack!_ of the striking bullet seemed almost quiet next to the impact. Murphy gasped at the pain in her left side, but turned in place and immediately shot back. The shooter, one of the lightly-armed grab team, fell backwards as the three-shot spread stitched up his body armor into his face. Lowering her pistol, Murphy quickly hobbled away before his buddies could retaliate.

She paused for a second in the dark cathedral, trying to catch her breath. She didn't have extra fabric to bind, so Murphy stepped silently into a nearby bathroom to grab a small towel. Bracing the cloth against her side, she desperately tried to even out her breathing and slow her panicked mind.

_I can't breathe_, she realized in a sudden moment of clarity. The bullet had hit her under the armpit, bypassing her body armor to strike her chest; it'd pierced her lung and was causing a tension pneumothorax. Grimacing as she carefully pulled the impromptu bandage away, Murphy carefully reached into the bullet wound until she found the tiny shell. Pulling it free with a dull _pop!_ of escaping air, she gasped in gratitude as the pain underneath her chest seemed to vanish. Slowly pushing the bullet back into place to keep her insides in one piece, Murphy grimaced at the sound of the wooden stairs creaking.

As the first attacker rounded the corner, Murphy sighted and fired a single shot. The bullet struck true, hitting the soldier in the head and killing him instantly. Ducking out of the way of his buddy's shots, Murphy retreated silently across the balcony to the other side, where she waited again as footsteps pounded on the stairs. As the two attackers passed by, each trying to cover their formation's blind spots, she let the two move past her before backtracking down the first flight of stairs.

Shepard was hidden, at least momentarily. The half-leopard things seemed reluctant to enter holy ground, which left her ironically somewhat safer in St. Mary's. She'd hold out here, call for help, and let SWAT handle these goons. Murphy ducked down a side corridor-

-and nearly ran headfirst into one of the armored soldiers, her pistol bouncing off the man's body armor. With no space to move, Murphy reached up and yanked the man's rifle down, using his deathgrip on his M4 as leverage to pull the soldier off-balance. As he stumbled forward, she reached out with her Sig to shoot at his buddy behind him. The other soldier ducked behind cover, giving Murphy the room she needed to retreat. Dodging shots from the other two pairs of soldiers, she kept hobbling towards the nave and a hope of safety.

"Surrender," a voice called out in accented English. The syllables rolled among the rafters, bouncing from wall to wall.

"Fuck you," Murphy grunted. She shifted her weight, trying to get a bead on any of the attackers. Ducking her head to avoid another three-round burst of submachine-gun fire from the two remaining men of the grab team, she scooted away on her butt as more shots echoed through the massive room.

Footsteps echoed suddenly on the stone floor; Murphy leaned out and sighted her Sig on the moving target. _Wearing armor, go for legs_- and the man dropped, cursing in Spanish, as the 9mm bullet went through his left thigh. Murphy dodged away in time to avoid the bullets, but one of the rounds kicked up a shard of stone that zipped by her face.

Blinking away blood dripping into her eyes, Murphy scooted away again as disciplined bursts of fire stuttered from the dark cathedral. There wouldn't be any surrender for her anymore, not after she'd put rounds into one of their buddies after they'd called for an end. The cop swore as more rounds shot overhead, accompanied by the scuffing of combat boots on stone. They were moving up.

A tiny grey shape shot overhead, barely visible in the moonlight. Murphy cursed and covered her ears while she screwed her eyes shut. The flashbang grenade detonated in a massive explosion of light and sound, the sudden flare and noise blinding and deafening her. Murphy rocked in place as the telltale shuffle of booted feet came closer and closer. Another grenade arced into the nave, another explosion of light and sound.

Murphy looked up, her vision blurry from the flashbangs, to see darkened shapes carefully sweeping the nave. Their vision must have also been affected by the second flashbang, she realized, which was the only reason she was still alive. A shape passed by her, the soldier's gun swinging slowly over her head, before the team passed on to continue up towards the altar. She had ten seconds, maybe fifteen, before they turned around and swept back down again; when they found her, they wouldn't offer a surrender. Mouthing a half-remembered prayer, Murphy raised her pistol and fired.

Her first shot caught the nearest soldier in the gap between his body armor and helmet. His spine shattered, the man dropped to the ground in an instant; Murphy was already swinging her weapon to the next target, who didn't try to turn and instead dived for the nearest cover available. Hitting her target with a shot to the leg, Murphy's vision suddenly blurred as a dull impact smacked the side of her head. She tried to steady herself, but her vision swam around her and her Sig dropped slowly from her hands. Bracing herself against the pew, she held herself upright as blurry shades closed in and stared her down.

The darkness to her right spoke: "Where's the map?"

Murphy shook her head drunkenly. "Dunno."

"Don't play any fucking games, _puta!_" snarled the shadow in front of her. "You burned the apartment to cover your tracks, but the thing's too big to put in a bus locker. Now, where did you stash the fucking map?"

The cop tried to spit, but her mouth was too dry. "Go fuck yourself."

"Easy there, Four," spoke another shadow, the first stepping backwards. "Lieutenant Murphy, we've got a great deal of respect for your work here. All things considered, we'd like to keep you alive. At the same time, our objective takes priority over my conscience." A shrug. "I'm quite sure you understand, considering your history. Now...the map, please."

Murphy faked unconsciousness, dropping her left hand slowly for the holdout revolver at her right ankle. A hand roughly yanked her head up, until she dazedly stared at the barrel of a rifle. The first man spoke again: "If you don't know, _puta_, there ain't no use in keeping you alive. Any last words?"

"**Yes."**

Shepard didn't use his guns.

He didn't need them.

Murphy watched as the purple blur went through three soldiers to strike a fourth, the humans sent flying by the blast. Shepard chopped forward, his knife-hand striking his first target's spine as his hand wrapped around it. Yanking his target off his feet, Shepard swung the dying man into another soldier still struggling to stand. The soldier and the corpse tumbled together down the steps of the nave in a tangle of arms and legs.

One of the men on overwatch fired bursts, the small-caliber bullets barely even making Shepard's shields flicker. In response, Shepard curled his fist, glowing with that unnatural light as his target literally exploded in a shower of gore. Sidestepping to dodge another stuttering burst of SMG fire, the Marine took two steps forward and slammed the shooter into a buttress with an elbow that left his target choking on blood. Spinning in place to dodge another soldier charging with a knife, Shepard let the attacker's strike slice past his shields and skitter along his armor before grabbing the man's head and twisting sharply. The wet _crack_ of snapping tendons and tearing muscles echoed through the dark cathedral.

One shadow still moved, pulling himself from his comrade's corpse at the foot of the stairs. Shepard walked soundlessly across the tile floor, a predator in its natural environment; the glowing blade on his arm almost seemed like an afterthought. "No," the terrified man whispered, his face white with fear.

"No!" he gasped, his breath short and choppy. The soldier scrambled on his hands and feet to get away from the approaching danger, his right hand fumbling desperately at his combat webbing. Pulling a silenced pistol from his gear, the soldier fired the weapon with a shaking hand at the oncoming force. The bullets sparked away harmlessly from Shepard's shields, the Marine not even slowing as the shots _ping_ed away. Blood dripped steadily from Shepard's gauntlets, bits of flesh and gore sliding away to hit the ground with meaty smacks.

"NO!" Murphy tried to sit up at the man's panicked yell, but the tearing pain in her side forced her to stop. Hyperventilating as her left lung began collapsing, she watched mutely as Shepard's omniblade rose gracefully above the pew blocking her sight. It hung there for a single moment before chopping downward, the sound of tearing flesh almost anticlimactic after the panicked chaos of the night.

Her vision blacked out at the edges, and Murphy dropped.

* * *

><p>"That'll be all, sir. Thank you." The cop seemed suspicious, but Shepard didn't give a damn. Ignoring the man's glare and hand on his pistol, the Marine weaved his way through the crowded emergency room. He shadowed a doctor, catching up to the harried woman as she stopped to glance at her clipboard.<p>

"How is she, ma'am?" The exhausted woman, bags under her eyes, stared dully at the towering soldier before shaking her head to wake herself up. "I haven't really seen anything like it," she said, glancing at Shepard's poorly disguised military gear. "The bleeding stopped incredibly fast, all things considered, and unless anything goes wrong she should make a full recovery." She quirked an eyebrow. "You didn't have anything to do with that weird bacteria on her wounds, did you? The lab techs are beating down my door to get a pure sample of that stuff."

"Ain't got a clue, ma'am," Shepard responded as honestly as he could. He hated using up his irreplaceable stocks of medi-gel, but Murphy had lost a lot of blood by the time he'd gotten to her. "She looked pretty iffy first I seed her, so I just picked 'er up an' got 'er here."

The doctor laughed. "Layin' it on a bit thick there, pardner?" She dropped her voice, motioning Shepard towards a quiet corner of the ER. "Don't worry. No one's going to know a thing." She snorted at Shepard's look. "What? Did you think we haven't seen Murphy here before? Did you all were the only ones in this fight? We'll keep her safe, whoever you are."

The Marine nodded, spinning on his heel and striding out. Other patients jumped out of his way as he made a beeline for the door, brushing past the cop who'd taken his statement earlier. "Sir, I need you to hold up for a moment."

Shepard stepped outside into the muggy Midwestern night, glancing up at the cloud-obscured stars. The parking lot, almost deserted at midnight, seemed almost eerie in his low-light vision, with only two streetlights casting dim pools of light across the wide cement ground. Seeing Murphy's car with the bullet still in the roof, he turned to go. "Sir! Stop right there!"

The soldier slowly turned in place to stare down the shorter man, grinning faintly as the cop gulped at the sight of the deserted parking lot. "Sir, we need to take your statement down at the station."

"Why?"

"Because you were a witness to a shooting, sir," the cop said carefully, glancing at the Marine as he did.

"Son," Shepard said slowly, "I'm an N6-qual'ed soldier, been declared clinically insane and volunteered as a lab rat and expendable shooter. I just been killed by a demon, brought back by an archangel, and been told I do things right back here in time of smash-circuit-make-Internet or reality ends. Son, no way in hell you want me as a witness."

The cop stood in the deserted parking lot, his eyes picking out the combat armor barely disguised under Shepard's clothing. After several long seconds, he tipped his hat and muttered, "Don't leave town. That's an order."

Shepard gave a faint grin as the cop left, which disappeared as he looked back at the lit-up hospital. Murphy was alive, but only barely. The local asset's house was unguarded, _because you couldn't control your issues for a single turn on watch!_ The situation was FUBAR, and plenty of it was his own damn fault. Slumping down onto the sidewalk, the Marine cradled his head in his hands and drew out a long sigh.

"Why me?"

"Why not?" a soft voice behind him whispered.


	13. Chapter 13: Shepard

_Kudos and Internet cookies to Magus Zanin, uju32, and Grosstoad for helping edit this story. Thanks, guys, you're awesome!_

* * *

><p>"Child, do you shoot everyone that walks up on you unannounced?" the voice <em>tsked<em> quietly in amusement.

Shepard cocked his head at the empty patch of air, his shotgun's muzzle sizzling from the overcharged shell.

"It might explain that dry spell of yours. Honestly, child, do you ever mean to find a decent woman? Or man? They're rather progressive in this particular patch of mortal fiefdom."

"Who are you," Shepard said slowly. It wasn't a question.

"Ah, so you seek knowledge," the voice whispered. "What would you be willing to pay for this?"

"Gonna give you a free bullet," Shepard grunted. "Pay up, an' I won't shoot you with it."

"Really, child. Is that truly what you wish to say to a Fae bringing you gifts?" A near-silent footstep sounded on his right, and Shepard spun around to finally catch sight of his latest tormentor.

_Danger_. The creature - no way in hell was she mortal - was terrifyingly beautiful. Ruby-red lips smiled like a shark at the Marine, and red-painted nails held out a black duffel bag, mundane next to the ethereal beauty holding it. The being wore a light-blue dress sewn with a pattern of drifting snowflakes, and Shepard resisted the urge to gawk as he realized that the snow seemed to be actually moving.

She looked serene and beautiful, much like another fairy that had ambushed him the night before. Given that the only other fairy he'd run into had promised to kill him if he didn't play detective for her, Shepard didn't plan to trust this one.

"Name." The Marine wished desperately that he had his helmet. His omnitool lit up in its low-light glow, a faint_ beep beep beep_ chiming from the machine. Beads of sweat gathered on his forehead, and he reflexively blinked to clear them away.

"Monosyllabic speech? My dear, what horrible torments have you inflicted upon the English language?" The not human waved her hand distractedly, and the movement rippled intriguingly across her body. Shepard's libido helpfully reminded him that he hadn't gotten laid in over two years. "Lah, never you mind. Peace, child; I am the Leanansidhe."

Shepard affected a deep, booming voice. **"Peace? What devilish sorcery is that?"**

The creature raised one thin eyebrow, bemused. "I see that your sense of humor remains as lamentable as-" she broke off, her eyes unfocused, before turning back to the Marine. "Oh, my. It seems that I've misjudged you, my child."

"Answer," the Marine said tersely, keeping his shotgun braced. "Contents of bag. Reason you're here."

"Ah, but I would be remiss if I did not observe basic laws of courtesy. You would do well in doing the same, my dear." The fae's tone was almost gentle, but Shepard could hear the steel behind the words. He could also see down her dr-_ Down, boy! Bad sex drive! No Fornax for you tonight!_

Shepard slowly lowered his shotgun, his stance still combative. Quickly glancing down at his beeping omnitool, he tapped several keys before facing the stunning creature. "Evenin', ma'am. Gonna have to ask 'bout your business 'round these parts."

The fairy gave a wide grin, showing far too many teeth for comfort. "My child, I come with gifts." She pointed to the mundane bag resting at her feet. "No obligation to you and yours. These are debts which I owe to another, and," her eyes closed in sorrow, whether feigned or real Shepard couldn't tell, "due to circumstances beyond my control, he can no longer collect on them."

"Elaborate." Shepard flexed his fingers, trying to ignore the usual L2 biotic migraine.

Leah frowned at his brusqueness, but continued airily. "You may have met Harry Dresden, a wizard of the White Council." She laughed at the reflexive twitch of surprise he couldn't hide. "Ah, so you _have_ met those hidebound incompetents! Dearest Harry was, shall we say, _persona non grata_ among them. When his apartment was attacked, he left his tools - wands and books, among others - with me for safekeeping. In fulfillment of my debt, I gift them to you."

"Heard about fairies an' gifts afore." Shepard leaned back, his eyes glancing at his omnitool. "Most stories ended in stewpots. Doubt I'd be real tasty, even with olive oil an' twenty minutes a side." He scratched his chin, trying to look casual. "Heard a couple stories with pitchforks, though. Cold iron, eh?"

The creature sneered, the expression ugly on such a beautiful face. "Watch your tongue, my child. Your predecessor made several such mistakes, and paid quite a price for them." She flicked her arm again, her face softening into a vacant smile. "Lah, never you mind. You will take these gifts, child."

Shepard grit his teeth. "That an order, ma'am?"

"No, merely an observation." The Fae glanced up at the towering hospital. "Observe: your compatriot is wounded, among others." She looked over his armor and weapons. "Observe: your weapons and armor are those of a soldier, though not of this time, and should they break then you shall find yourself with little else to draw on. Observe: you face a multitude of enemies, and fighting each one these past two days has cost you. You need every tool and weapon that you can find, and turning down what I freely offer would likely kill you." She smirked. "You mortals yammer on about sight, but you're not especially well-endowed."

Shepard snarled incoherently, but held out his hand. The fairy neatly deposited the bag's strap onto his arm, a slight smirk on her face, and Shepard carefully placed the unknown tools by his feet.

Shepard looked down at the dull black bag. "How will-"

He glanced up to an empty parking lot.

"Fuckin' fairies."

* * *

><p>Murphy was only thirty minutes out of surgery before Shepard broke into her room.<p>

She ignored the minor vandalism charges as the huge man tried to straighten out the window he'd silently broken on his way in, smiling as he dropped a worn black duffel bag at his feet. Murphy looked on, silent and unsure if her voice still even worked, as Shepard looked over her and her medical charts.

"You look like shit." Shepard's words were harsh, but his red-rimmed eyes told a different story. She wondered about those eyes, those strange grey irises staring at her intensely with an emotion - hurt? fear? - that she couldn't place.

Murphy glanced down at her bandaged chest. "Thanks for the help, I definitely couldn't have figured that out for myself," she rasped.

She paused, trying to collect her scattered thoughts amid the haze of painkillers. "Also, thanks for that gel stuff you put on the wounds; the docs said that they'd never seen someone with this much blood left inside them after getting shot in the chest. I had to beat the medical students back with a stick, they were all so interested."

"Murph, I-" the Marine tried to speak, finding himself at a loss for words. He gestured silently with his hands, the motion almost frightening from someone his size. Accidently bumping an IV tree with his hand, Shepard reached out with lightning-quick reflexes to grab it before it hit the ground.

"So yeah, thanks and all, but couldn't you have saved at least _one_ of those soldiers at the church for us to question?" Murphy finally asked, sounding more peeved than she actually was.

"Never was a smart Marine," Shepard said flippantly.

"Hmm," Murphy said, contemplative. "So what is a 'smart' one like?"

"Smart Marines only set their junk on fire on Tuesdays," he responded.

Murphy, her jaw hanging open in shock, looked at him with her head cocked. "I..._what?_"

Shepard gave her a wide grin. "Ever seen bored Marines?"

"No, and that's probably a good thing," Murphy said with a chuckle. "Bored cops are bad enough already." Wetting her lips, she croaked, "Shepard. New rule."

She paused to think of the right words. "No killing humans."

The Marine cocked his head, contemplative. "Murph, this is Earth. Cradle of humanity, pisshole what spawned _homo sapiens_, planet of the shaved apes, an' all. Gonna be tough."

Murphy tried to wave her hand in dismissal, but couldn't find the strength. "If you don't have a choice, I'll understand. But not like tonight. No killing when you don't need to, understand?"

She watched those grey eyes look into her own, almost like the tremors of-

Shepard blinked. "Fine. Guess I can get it, comin' from a cop." He sighed. "Just...killing's easy. Always been that way, since...2160s, at least."

Murphy shook her head, distracted by Shepard's seemingly casual acceptance of his own time travel. "I have to ask...why? I can accept you being from the future, but...well, why me? Why now?"

Shepard coughed slightly, his throat bobbing as he tried to find the right words. He sat down in a nearby chair, the plastic thing creaking under the weight of the man and his armor. "Don't ask me why now. When I was up in la-la land, got asked if I wanted to go back. Said yes." He sighed, rolling his shoulder slightly. "Truth, Murph, I been wanderin' for a long time. Spent years w'nothing to fight for, just to fight against. Slavers, mercs, you name it then I killed it."

"So why here?" Murphy asked quietly. "What made you trust me?"

"My old XO had blond hair. Short, too," Shepard said with a short chuckle. "Had a mean streak a mile wide - kinda had to, short woman in Marine Recon an' all." He looked at Murphy, his eyes focusing again. "Seein' you relax in the church afore everythin' started, hearin' you ask me could I just unwind a little an' crack a beer, well," he broke off with a muted sniffle. He leaned forward, the dull black armor glinting in the overhead light.

"She's dead, isn't she?" Murphy asked quietly. Shepard had that Look about him again.

"Yeah."

"Want to talk about it?"

"Nope."

"So, do we even have anything else to talk about that _doesn't_ involve shooting people?" Murphy asked, trying to break the awkward silence after a moment.

"Nah. Kinda like talkin' 'bout murder an' mayhem," Shepard said with a crooked grin. "Makes me feel all warm an' fuzzy inside."

"Alright, then," Murphy said softly, "Where do we start?"

Shepard pulled out his shotgun and aimed it at the door. "Like to start conversations with shootin' the door first," he said in a loud voice. "Sets the mood real well."

Murphy watched, confused, as the door handle turned and Agent Tilly entered the room. "From you, I'd actually believe that," he said to Shepard with a scowl. A Chicago cop, standing guard at her private room's door, took a look in as Tilly entered and started at the sight of Shepard in the room. Murphy glanced over at him with The Look, the ones all officers and managers learn on the job, and felt a moment of perverse satisfaction as the cop nodded in confused understanding and sat back down again.

Ignoring their minor byplay, Tilly carried two steaming cups of coffee and a slip of paper, his shoulder holster unbuttoned and the pistol within easy reach. He handed one cup to Murphy, who quickly grabbed her battery acid with the iron grip of the truly decaffeinated.

"Shepard, how did you see hi- on second thought, I'm just going to chalk that up to 'freaky space magic' again," Murphy croaked. She sipped the scalding-hot liquid, wincing as it burned her tongue.

"I've been getting unconfirmed reports of a firefight in Englewood and a car chase up Ashland Avenue," Tilly said dryly. "I suppose that I should suffer a little memory loss if I get asked about that?"

"That was us, Barry," Murphy said quietly. "We were ambushed, by the same creatures that attacked us near Dres- the apartment." She considered the running skirmish for a moment. "Their shape-shifters can't enter holy ground, by the way. If you see them, head to the nearest church."

"So, since I just learned that vampires exist two days ago...what's happened over the past twenty-four hours?" Tilly asked, confused.

"Sniper shot Dresden, tried to kill me when I showed up late," Shepard announced.

"There was the Fomor kidnapping group," Murphy added.

"The shifters an' snipers at Dresden's place-"

"You wrecking my van!" Tilly added angrily.

"Denarians at Rudolph's house-"

"There were the ghosts warning us about Mortimer Lindquist-"

"Ghosts attacking Mortimer's place-"

"The gangbanger Aristedes getting poled into a wall-"

"-an' the ambush."

Silence fell for a few seconds, broken after a subjective eternity by Tilly's flat

_**"What."**_

"'Bout what we thought, too," Shepard said with a sigh. "Been runnin' around pissin' on fires fer too long tonight."

"Well, that's one way to deal with a fire," Murphy snarked.

Ignoring her, Shepard stood up and began to pace the room. "Narrow it down. Pull the external stuff, find the links." Shepard waved a hand at Murphy: "Dresden killed - happened after a major op, stinks like a cover-up. Same for Rudolph. Tilly, anything in from Rudolph's insurance package?"

"I've only barely started in on those papers Rudolph hid in the stove, although I might have something of use," Tilly admitted. "Work has been, well," he trailed off.

Shepard winced. "Heard 'bout that. You take your time."

Tilly took a piece of paper from his coat and held it out to Shepard. "Most of Rudolph's insurance papers are encoded on password-locked CDs, and the encryptions likely died with him. Currently, the only uncoded things in the insurance files are some photos and police reports that he put on top of the file a few days ago. Our late friend Rudolph was apparently very interested in this one gang, the Ninth Street Reds, over in the south side. Apparently they've gone very quiet over the past few months, and the behavior of their members in custody has been pretty erratic. They're almost silent in lockup, and for some weird reason, they all wear jackets and sweaters, no matter how hot it gets." He shrugged helplessly. "Maybe it's something, maybe it's not. All I know is, Rudolph cared enough to put on top of his hideaway."

"What about the shape-shifters, the ones who attacked us at the church and the warehouse?" Murphy interrupted. "Do we know what they want, or whether they'll attack again?"

Shepard shook his head. "Definitely were hasty ops. Did they want us dead and planned it proper-like, we'd be corpsicles. No way in hell does a pro team have only one option, 'gainst a target already lived through another."

Tilly glanced over at the armored Marine. "So, what happens next with them?"

"Happens? Ain't nothin'. They'll go to ground. Plan's disrupted, threats incoming, time to make like a bakery truck an'-"

"Do _not_ finish that pun," Murphy growled half-heartedly. Shepard merely grinned.

Agent Tilly frowned. "How do you know this much about covert assassinations?"

"Got some experience in stuff like, um," Shepard stopped and scratched the back of his neck, "'course, probably shouldn't be tellin you this, yeah?"

Tilly laughed. "Telling an FBI agent about how you're a futuristic cyborg assassin? Just say that you're here for John Connor in a bad Austrian accent and no one will take you seriously." He frowned, looking at the armored Marine. "But you're really, honestly telling the truth? Born in in the 22nd century and all?"

"Sure as daylight. Lotta stories to forget, there." Shepard sat down on the ancient chair by Murphy's bedside, the wooden relic creaking under his weight. "So. Crazy shape-shifters'll probably leave us alone for a bit - we investigate 'em later. Aristedes-"

"Aristedes the child-abusing fucker," Murphy muttered angrily. The old bastard had died in pain, speared into the wall of the warehouse he and his 'gang' had been hiding in, and she didn't feel a shred of remorse for him.

"Douchebag von Bastardo?" Shepard said. "Wasn't the shape-shifters what killed him."

"Why not?" Tilly broke into the conversation.

"Aristedes was killed by someone ramming a pole through him," Murphy said. "Even assuming that the shape-shifters could do that, it's out of character for stealthy assassins. Besides, from what I could understand from the children, Aristedes was killed by one man instead of a full team; Fitz called him a "shadow," though that kid seems to live off in the clouds half the time. I'll ask the other older children if they saw a glimpse of the killer, or if they've heard anything about Shepard's new best friends."

Shepard snorted. "Best friends, eh? Pen pals? We gonna be exchanging letters with 'em?"

"Long conversations, with lots of punctuation," Murphy replied. "We'll be very explicit."

The Marine waved his hand. "Point is, Aristedes got offed by somethin' else."

"Who did it?" Tilly asked.

"Doesn't matter, not now."

"It's a man dead in my city," the FBI agent said hotly. "It's my problem."

"Cut yer losses. Bad man's dead. Bigger fish right now." Shepard held his hand up. "Fomor. Shapeshifters. Denarians. Ghosts. Street gangers actin' funny. Motivations?"

He held up one finger. "Denarians: kill Rudolph the local contact, play hush-hush an' find his insurance papers."

Murphy nodded. "The shapeshifters were after something as well; the one in the church kept asking for a 'map' of some kind. It was a smash-and-grab operation."

Tilly added, "The Chicago PD Special Investigations unit has been investigating the fomor hideout you raided one night ago. I made some discreet calls, but so far they've found nothing except clear evidence of a kidnapping operation. From what you described to me earlier, Murphy, I'm guessing that they were kidnapping people who they thought had a "magic" talent." He frowned. "I can't even believe I'm saying that out loud."

Shepard shrugged. "Eh, I seen crazier. Leastaways, those all make sense. Bad fer us, but understandable. Whatever got Aristedes left the kids alone, so let's hope it don't come fer us too. Damn ghosts still don't make sense, though."

"Ghosts?" Tilly asked, confused.

"Shepard's scared witless of ghosts," Murphy said with a smile. "Shepard, you said that you'd seen an actual ghost attack. What happened, exactly?"

* * *

><p><em>"Down!" Shepard yelled at Fitz, pushing the kid behind one of the porch's solid oak pillars. Ghosts were streaming past them, barely moving to dodge the two humans, and Shepard handed the kid his knife again.<em>

_Fitz held onto the Nightshade-pattern weapon with a deathgrip, his eyes wide but unfocused even as a ghost passed by his hand. "Sir? Sir, I can hear something. A lot of somethings."_

_"I know, kid. I can see 'em," Shepard muttered. "Hold here."_

_It was worse than getting hunted by yahg. Ghosts streamed out from the house, men with ancient muskets drifting in an unseen wind while others wielded hand axes or rifles. Dozens of strange uniforms passed by, soldiers from different times forming ranks that they all knew well. Shepard recognized Amerindians, World War fighters, shapes and faces he'd never seen or known. He shivered as some of them gazed back at him._

_It was utterly, frighteningly quiet; there were no yells, no screams of pain or rage, not even footsteps or the sound of crickets. It was a silent tableaux, a soundless video of a battle's prelude, as the ghostly men all looked outwards towards the dim streetlights._

_"Sir? Sir, what's going on?" Fitz's voice was barely above a whisper. Shepard said nothing, merely putting a hand on the boy's shoulder to keep him from standing. His Avalanche shotgun was already in his right hand, the stubby weapon braced close, but he kept the muzzle pointed down._

_A ghost, more distinct and defined than the others, moved steadily towards the porch. A three-pointed hat balanced precariously on his head, and tassels hung from the officer's epaulets on his shoulders. A bulky coat, unbuttoned and held in place with criss-crossing bands, flapped to an intangible breeze above knee-high riding boots. Shepard almost laughed at the anachronism standing in front of a 2000s-era city, but the figure's determined expression and the well-used sword at his waist stifled the thought._

_The ghost stopped in front of the futuristic Marine, his eyes roving across the porch, before they fixed on the teenager and the armored soldier. Standing straight and drawing his sword, the specter saluted the two mortals with the weapon before turning to his own force. Shepard could see dark shadows gathering and moving with purpose; he knew, with an instinct he couldn't place, that those shapes spelled danger._

_"Inside. Now." Shepard hauled Fitz bodily upright, ignoring the boy's panicking, and shoved him forward. He could almost smell the stink of melting rockcrete and taste the acid-stink, and he was slipping c'mon keep it together-_

* * *

><p>"Shepard?" Tilly asked carefully.<p>

The Marine slowly gathered his wits and straightened his back, forcing himself to drop his arms and relax his posture. "I'm fine," he muttered through gritted teeth.

"You're lying your ass off," Murphy observed dryly.

"Yep," he said truthfully. "I-I saw a ghost recon-in-force. Probably. I think. Too few to take the house, whatever they was. Looked like ghosts outside Mort's, but-" He froze in place, his mind racing, before jumping upright. "Tilly, on me. Now."

"Shepard, stop. Tell me what's going on," Murphy ordered.

The N operative paused in place. "The Ninth Street Reds - gangbangers actin' weird. Don't talk much, wear bulky clothes, stay inside? What do ghosts do in horror vids?"

"Possession," Tilly whispered, his eyes wide.

"So, possessed gang. Ghost recon-in-force. Put it together." Shepard was winding a small cable from his belt; he fastened the lead to the edge of the window. Forcing open the ruined old window with his massive machete, Shepard slowly slid it open and glanced outside.

Murphy gasped in shock. "Shepard, the ghosts at my house, the ones warning me about Mortimer; they were _early_." She grabbed the possessions by her bedside, rooting through them for her phone, but winced as the motion tore at the stitches in her side.

Shepard walked next to the lanky FBI agent, the metal line trailing from him to the open window. "Tilly, you afraid of heights?"

Tilly shook his head. "No. Should I be?"

The Marine shrugged. "After this? Maybe."

Shepard grabbed the FBI agent by the front of his coat and yanked him over his shoulder. Ignoring his panicked yell, Shepard hefted the agent and threw himself out the window, a slight purple haze coloring their movement. The line from his belt spun out with a loud _whirrr_, slowly descending out of sight until the tiny hook at the window suddenly unlatched itself with a loud _click_.

Murphy craned her neck from the hospital bed, watching the spectacle with her mouth open in surprise, even as the cop on duty opened the inside door with his weapon out. Scrabbling for her phone as she remembered the mission, she quickly dialed Mort's number from memory. "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, pick up," she snarled at the blocky plastic machine.

Her only response was a dial tone.

* * *

><p>Mortimer Lindquist's empty house felt crowded as Shepard and Tilly swept through it, their gun muzzles panning across the deserted lawn. The two men took the front porch two steps at a time, their boots creaking on the old wooden slats. The solid oak door, broken open, swung on its own as Shepard approached it. "Nil on thermal," he said curtly, passing through into the front hall with his shotgun circling each corner. Tilly followed, still trying to wrap his head around the idea of a guy who -really- talked with spirits.<p>

"It feels like someone's breathing over my shoulder," Tilly muttered. "This Mortimer guy, the ghost whisperer, is he the real thing?"

"Watched two ghost armies skirmish on his front lawn. That good enough?" Shepard's fingers tightened on his shotgun's grip as he said it. Tilly reached out to turn off the boiling water on the stove as they passed through the kitchen; both of them noticed the half-cut vegetables and the conspicuously absent kitchen knives.

"You can see ghosts?" Tilly asked, somewhat surprised.

"Yeah," Shepard murmured. "Wish I couldn't."

The back porch door lay open, toppled furniture laying in mute signs of a struggle. Glass from the shattered windows lay outside, many shards decorated with red stains. Dirty footprints, many of them small and barefoot, lead randomly across the rooms.

"Kids. You didn't say there were kids," Tilly said, confused.

"We didn't expect 'em neither," Shepard muttered. "C'mon." The two men continued through the ground floor, noting the mudstains in front of the basement. Shepard halted in front of the door, his left fist glowing with its freakish purple light again.

Tilly gritted his teeth and held out his hand in front of the armored monster. "No. Let's try words first," he whispered. Raising his voice, he said quietly, "Hey there. My name is Barry Tilly, and I'm a policeman. If you can hear me, I need you to let me know."

The two men heard nothing but scuffling. Shepard's helmet cocked towards the floor, and he adjusted a glowing dial on his left hand. "Movement down there. Think it's the kids, but they ain't talkin'. Goin' in." He raised his voice. "Fitz, this is Shepard. Come on out, or I'm goin' in."

"H-hold," Tilly said hesitantly. He realized, in a momentary flash of insight, how utterly frightened he was of Shepard. Here he was, six foot six of puny mortal human, trying to talk down a psychopathic black-ops killer, with enough PTSD to fuel a lifetime of nightmares and literally unbelievable power at his fingertips. He'd hunted men like Shepard, with too many years spent in dark places and the morals to match. None of those killers could rip a tank to shreds with their bare hands, or kill him with a thought.

"Stop, Shepard. I've got this." A distant part of Tilly's mind wondered at how steady his voice sounded. Turning back to the locked door, he called out, "Alright, kids, I need to see if you're OK. I promise we won't hurt you, but it's my job to keep you safe and I can't do that with you hiding in this basement."

The house remained still. Tilly breathed deeply, forcing himself to remain calm and ignoring the featureless black helmet glaring at him.

The silence was broken by quiet footsteps. Though the person was trying to stay silent, the ancient basement steps creaked under his weight as he went forward. With a slow rattle, the door slid open to reveal a boy's face glaring at them.

"Evenin', Fitz," the Marine said quietly. "Got your weapon?"

A knife flashed out from behind the door, carving a chunk out of the solid oak doorjamb. Shepard laughed softly, the sound eerie through his helmet's electronic speakers. "Good. Get yer people up, kid. We're leavin'."

* * *

><p>Tilly looked over the cozy living room, his mouth open in shock. The cartoon Madagascar was playing on the room's archaic TV, the children that Fitz had led from the basement curled over the nearby chairs and couch. As the cartoon penguins blew apart a New York apartment to escape a tiny dog, the children laughed and gasped with each new escapade.<p>

As did Shepard.

The massive man hung on the edge of the couch, his eyes glued to the TV screen, laughing uproariously as one of the penguins lit a stick of dynamite while frantically asking** "Kaboom?"** He clapped armored gloves together at the end of the movie alongside the children, still giggling as the credits rolled. The first wide, genuine smile Tilly had ever seen from him hung on his face.

Tilly waited silently near the door, feeling torn. With Mortimer kidnapped, they had to move quickly to rescue him, but he couldn't bring himself to ruin the one time he had ever seen Shepard genuinely smile. A small hand tugged on his sleeve, and he turned to see Fitz the teenager standing with a finger on his lips. Fitz pushed Tilly out of sight and bounded into the room, brandishing a sheet of paper and yelling "Alright, everyone, we've got crayons now! The first one to draw the Commander real good gets a cookie!"

As the children streamed past him into the dining room, Tilly slunk into the now-deserted living room. A smile still tugged at Shepard's face, and Agent Tilly felt like a rat bastard for asking, "So, what's our weapon loadout?"

Shepard's face returned to its normal blank slate, and the two men began to plan their battle.

* * *

><p>Shepard looked over the cramped living room, his eyes only seeing pieces of the mission. Tilly stood with the Avenger rifle, muttering inaudibly as he shifted the bulky weapon into different firing positions; Shepard grinned as he recognized combat stances similar to his own. The futuristic eezo-boosted arsenal took up the table, each weapon already disassembled and cleaned thoroughly. Their impromptu charger was still feeding power into Shepard's omnitool, the black sleeve draped over a nearby armchair as the wall outlet sparked occasionally. Fitz clumsily drew a basic attack pattern with his new Nightshade knife, his lips pursed in concentration.<p>

Shepard's eyes narrowed as he walked over to the boy. "You ready to talk about the attack?" Fitz paused, then nodded.

"Spill." Fitz blinked, before the words spilled out uncontrolled:: "They- the Reds - came in the front door, didn't even knock or nothin'. We're eating dinner and the door goes 'bam' and Mort's standing in front of us and they just take him down." He paused for breath. "I got us to the basement, locked it up tight, but they didn't care a bit about us. It was in, grab Mort, and go." Fitz sighed, his hands absently flipping the razor-sharp knife in place. Shepard simply listened; he'd performed enough debriefings to know when to talk and when to stay silent.

Fitz looked up, his face set in a grimace. "You're going to rescue Mort, right? That's why you're getting all these guns ready."

Shepard grunted, "Yep. Know what you're thinking, too." Fitz glanced up, surprised, as the Marine continued: "The answer is no."

The kid stuck his jaw forward determinedly. "The hell you say?"

"You wanna go. I'm the no-fun jackass tellin' you to stay." Shepard interrupted as Fitz opened his mouth.

"You found a new home, a new chance to do things better. Now the enemy's come through, broke that home up but good, an' you want to make it right." Shepard sighed, kneeling down until he was face-to-face with the scowling teeneager. "Kid, I been in your shoes too. You go in w'revenge on the brain, you be catchin' bullets instead."

Fitz scowled. "Yeah? And what'd they say when you wanted to go out, Mister Broody McGrumpypants?"

"It's _Commander_ Broody McGrumpypants! Get it right!"

Tilly looked over with a pained grimace on his face, before reconsidering and turning back to his weapons practice.

Shepard stared at the boy. "I wanted the same was I young, kid. Me old LT made a rule: win on the range, an' on the mat. Get a better rifle score than someone an' beat them in hand-to-hand. 'Less you feel like fightin'," he said with a grin and a gesture towards the lanky FBI agent, "you're stayin'."

Fitz planted his feet. "I'm going, Shepard, because you need my help. Even if I don't go in, you need more people watching your back, or driving your getaway car."

Tilly raised an eyebrow. "You _drive_?"

Fitz gestured to the small children drawing on the nearby dining room table. "Yo."

"He's got a point," Tilly said conversationally. "I'm all for not calling in the National Guard, but we are assaulting a ghost-possessed gang's hideout with nothing but you, me, and bad manners."

"And guns," Shepard remarked.

"Them too," Tilly agreed. "Still, unless your guns feel like shooting themselves and complaining about the weather on their own, I think we'll need at least one more person watching our backs."

"You're a cop. Don't you have someone fer that?" Shepard asked.

Tilly winced. "Had."

The Marine cursed quietly. "Alright. Fitz, yer on. Getaway car only, understood?"

Fitz frowned, but nodded. "Can I get a gun at least?"

Shepard tossed him his massive sniper rifle. "No power setting above 3, or ya lose the arm."

Tilly looked at the teenager, dwarfed by the massive rifle that had unfolded itself in his hands. "Shepard, I know you left your pistol with Karrin, but don't you have another gun that's less...ridiculously overkill?"

"The Weapons Fairy got no more presents today." Shepard scratched his chin absentmindedly. "Reminds me, gotta get more boom-boom. Tilly, know a good armory to rob?"

Tilly's eyebrow twitched. "You're asking an FBI agent about breaking into a military armory?"

Shepard cocked his head. "Need me to repeat it?"

Tilly gave a crooked grin. "Say it to a microphone and I'll think of a place or two."

"Righto," Shepard agreed absently. "Explosives later. Garage now; gotta put together somethin' improvised."

* * *

><p><em>30 minutes later - the waterfront<em>

"That is the most ominous door I have ever seen," Tilly announced, trying to stare down the metal garage door with his eyes alone.

Tilly's car was alone on the silent street. Dim streetlights, many burned out or broken, cast occasional pools of light across the deserted factories. The old, dilapidated buildings loomed in the pre-dawn light, each one spookier than the last. Broken windows and fallen shutters gaped like eyes and mouths in the brickwork, each one another potential threat.

"I've seen worse," Fitz said, sticking his chin out.

"You have?" Tilly asked, raising an eyebrow. Shepard kept his eyes fixed on the gang's run-down apartment building. His 'garage surprise' sat on his right, sloshing when the Marine moved too much.

"My old place," Fitz announced with a sniff. "We made it extra spooky on purpose."

"Fair enough, kid," Tilly said, grinning. It faded as he looked back. He hated waiting. He despised the endless rounds of coffee, the too-long hostage negotiations, and the fields of paperwork waiting for him when he would finish. Press releases, talks with the media and the victims, interrogations; an FBI hostage situation was an ordeal that an agent merely tried to survive.

He would trade all of that boredom, fear, and anger for a chance to avoid this.

"I'm on point," Shepard announced. "Goin' in extra big-'n-loud, ta get their attention. Fitz, you're on lookout; Tilly, on my six five meters back. I'm the man with the armor, so let me hog their attention, capische? You're both way too fragile fer my preference." He hoisted the "garage special" at his side: "That cartoon gave me an idea 'bout gettin' attention, so this'll be goin' in ahead of us. Tilly, watch yer feet inside."

Shepard turned back to Fitz, who was clutching his new knife with a deathgrip, the bulky "Mantis" rifle slung on his back. "You stay on lookout."

"But-"

"No stupid stuff, kid," the Marine ordered curtly. "That's _my_ job. Clear?"

Tilly nodded. "Time for our inspiring speech," he muttered with a faint attempt at a smile. His hands, slick with sweat, slipped on the "Avenger" rifle's grip.

"Never liked speeches. More a man of actions," Shepard responded, his face once again hidden behind his intimidating black helmet.

"Actions?"

The armored man shrugged. "Blowin' stuff up, mostly. Like this." He turned and fired, the shotgun black collapsing the building's flimsy front door.

**"You! Yeah, you!"** he bellowed towards a shadowy figure inside, the sound booming from speakers somewhere in his gear. **"Quit scratchin' yer daddysack an' listen up! I'm bored, I'm armed, an' I got a question fer ya..."**

He brandished his 'garage special:' a jerrycan of gasoline, with a single flare burning merrily on its side.

_**"KABOOM?"**_


	14. Chapter 14: Shepard

There wasn't much worse, Fitz decided, than gettin' a ghost in your head.

The possessed Ninth Street Reds didn't say much, and they didn't walk right either. Their big hoodies hid their faces, for the most part, but Fitz could see them drooling a little sometimes. They almost looked like dogs, aside from the clubs and the guns.

Inside, though - on the inside they were _screaming_. There were voices in their heads, a whole lotta them, and Fitz was real glad he couldn't really See what was goin' on in there. It looked bad, real bad, and if he'd been alone here he'd have been praying for his life.

Of course, he had a little help now. Watching the Commander take out the Reds, Fitz decided, was a bit like watchin' a German shepard tear through a pack of chihuahuas. A couple of the gangbangers around the burning entrance had pistols, and they started shooting at the Commander as he walked across the street. The bullets sounded pretty quiet from Fitz's lookout spot, little _pop-pop-pop_s echoing across the waterfront as the lead bounced off of Shepard's armor.

The Commander - no matter what else, he'd always be that in Fitz's mind - stopped for a moment in the middle of the street, the bullets still plinking offa him. He waited until they'd stopped for a sec to reload, and started to run. Fitz craned his neck, and watched as that tall FBI guy started to move around the left, hiding as Shepard got everyone's attention. Behind the gangers, the warehouse was really starting to burn as the gas fire crept up the walls.

The Reds spread out around Shepard, holding pipes and makeshift shanks - street weapons. Fitz knew the tactic well: surround the big guy, hit him from the sides, slow him down and cut him to bits real slow. 'Course, Fitz could hear what the Commander was thinkin' down in the street, and he grinned as he watched what came next.

It took just a little over twenty seconds. Fourteen Reds, most of their crew if he was rememberin' it right, were out cold. The FBI guy was behind Shepard, cuffing the whole bunch with cable ties like they did in the movies. Fitz leaned back, a wide grin on his face, before remembering that he was supposed to be on lookout.

Fitz almost didn't notice the two Ninth Street lookouts rushing back to their place, but his gasp gave him away. The two guys paused when they heard him, that creepy screaming from their heads changing a bit, even as things got real quiet from where Shepard was cleanin' house. Fitz reflexively hunched down, the big Mantis rifle bumping against his back, as the two gangbangers came to investigate.

The ghost-touched didn't look any better up close. Their thick clothes hadn't been changed in weeks, and they smelled like street life in a way that Fitz could only really get after a good shower at Mort's place. Their eyes shone a little in the moonlight, little shining dots from under their hoods.

"Back off," Fitz ordered, tryin' to shake the quaver in his voice.

"You're all alone, kid," whispered one of the hooded gangers. "No one's coming." The two Reds stepped forward, unsteady yet still moving quickly.

The Commander's voice got a little closer, and Fitz had to keep himself from jumping at the mental noise. Another voice whispered in his ear, and he grinned at the thought. "No. Batman's out here tonight."

The smaller attacker snorted. "Who?"

Fitz planted his feet and leaned his head forward. "Batman. He comes out at night and keeps the streets safe. People like you better run and hide, 'cuz he's comin' for you."

The bigger possessed guy shook his head. "Who are you talking ab-"

"**Me."**

The gangers' heads cracked together like coconuts, and the two Reds dropped like rocks. Shepard stood behind them, and though his face was invisible under the helmet, Fitz could hear him laughing. The Commander was having a whole lotta fun.

"Really, kid?" Tilly snorted as he cable-tied the two former lookouts. "Batman?"

Fitz grinned. "Hey, it fits." He pointed at the two unconscious Reds. "_Now_ can I go with you inside?"

* * *

><p>"Y'know..."<p>

"Yeah?"

Tilly considered his words. "I have to say, this is the first firefight I've had _inside_ a burning building."

Shepard chuckled over their tactical net. "Heh. Ain't a real fire yet." He pivoted, throwing a rock with a classic pitcher's throw; the stone smacked across the temple of yet another ganger trying to sneak up on them. "Also, I gotta love smart thermals."

Tilly tied up the unconscious man at hands and feet, passing him off to Fitz and motioning the kid to haul the guy outside of the fire. Tilly had his personal gas mask, but he didn't have anything for the kid. "Shepard, we knew we were going to have to walk in here. Setting the place on fire seems..." he pivoted, checking their six as he tried to find the right diplomatic words, "fairly insane, with a little bit of 'Oh God, oh God, we're all gonna die' thrown in."

The Marine just chuckled. "Thing's a trap," Shepard answered, hefting a fallen I-beam out of the way. "Their recon spotted me an' the kids, but they left the kids alone? They haul Mort away, but just back to here? Had to expect someone'd come to find him."

The FBI agent struggled to follow Shepard's train of thought as he shied away from a burning grease patch on his left. "So, why burn the place down?"

"Trap!" Shepard said, exasperated. "Be creepy ghosts an' magic traps, so we mess it up from the start. Fire burns up most stuff pretty good, so it'll burn whatever surprises did they got for us here. Probably," he amended, bringing his shotgun up to bear as the two men passed through the smoldering loading dock and into the central factory floor.

"And Mortimer?" Tilly asked forcefully. He ducked instinctively as a shot rang out from above them, and training took over. Bring the weapon up, sight on the target, squeeze the trigger don't yank it, and **BLAM-BLAM-BLAM** that's a hit. Someone growled in pain from the catwalks as the bullets connected, making an inhuman yowl, and a dull _thump_ came from above.

Shepard lowered his weapon and started glowing purple again. As the wounded ganger above dropped to the floor, his fall slowed to a crawl while that creepy purple light shone around him like a halo. The Marine kept his left fist clenched in concentration, and as the light disappeared near the floor, the wounded man dropped with a dull _thud_. "Clean an' cuff, or tag an' bag, your call," Shepard ordered Tilly brusquely. "Also, good shot."

Tilly hurried over to the wounded gangbanger, his stomach turning. He'd shot a man. A criminal, sure, one who had shot at him first, but that still didn't make him feel any better about it. The FBI agent pulled his small first aid kit from his belt pouch, looking for the gunshot wounds.

It seemed amazing, he mused, that this man might die from such tiny wounds. The Avenger rifle's bullets had punched straight through, two neat holes leaking blood from the Red's abdomen. Slapping pressure bandages on the wounds, Tilly quickly flipped the man over and did the same to the exit wounds before cuffing the groaning man's hands and feet.

"You ever done that before, sir?"

Tilly spun to his feet, yanking the Avenger rifle off the ground to aim at Fitz. "Damnit, kid, don't sneak up on a man with a gun!" he snarled, his adrenaline spiking.

Shepard chuckled, the sound out of place in the gloomy factory that happened to be on fire. "Thought I warned you 'bout that, Fitz." He turned forward, making some sort of complicated hand signal as he did. "Anyways, G-man, whatever ghost got Mort needs him alive. Did they want him dead, he'd be a hunk of meat in his own house now."

Tilly swore to himself, following Shepard as Fitz tagged along behind. "Damnit, I can't believe I didn't see it earlier! Possessing the gang was a sideshow: whoever took Mort wants to do the same to him. If you're a ghost, then grab the ghost whisperer."

Shepard nodded. "Huh. Sounds right, 'least. Point is, they need him alive. Place is on fire, so now they go for whatever ratholes they got to escape with."

Fitz spoke up. "And we're gonna find those _how_, exactly?"

Shepard just laughed and tapped the side of his helmet.

* * *

><p>"Spooky."<p>

"Yep." It was, Shepard agreed, a spooky-as-hell place. The factory basement, untouched by the fire above, had only one un-blockedstairway in or out. A few electric lights cast a meager glow over the room, and an unearthly howling echoed from down below.

Shepard gritted his teeth, shouldered his weapon, and walked into the room of the dead.

Ghosts were everywhere: some drifted haphazardly through the walls, while others tried to batter at the mortals passing through their assembly. Ghosts shrieked in silent rage and dove towards them, their wispy bodies fading as their talons raked at nothing. Shepard ignored his suit's warning as his heart rate spiked, trying desperately to stop gasping in fear.

"_Fuck_ ghosts." Tightening his grip on the gun, with Tilly still mutely guarding his back, the Marine stepped towards a single light hovering over an old cistern.

Mortimer, held aloft by a single rope, hung above the pit of hungry ghosts.

The ectomancer was connected with ghosts: he could see them, hear them, speak to them - and be affected by them. Held below by an unseen force, the mindless ghosts beneath Mortimer surged and roiled like a malevolent sea; the chubby man above them tried to scream through a gag in his mouth. It was torture, pure and simple, for a purpose Shepard could already guess.

"What's going on?" Tilly whispered, confused. Fitz knew better; the teenager huddled behind Tilly, crying softly. Cursing quietly in batarian, Shepard raised his shotgun and fired at Mort.

The pellets passed through the rope holding Mortimer Lindquist above the pit. The ectomancer fell, his screams muffled by the gag and the cords holding him in place, before he became haloed in the light of Shepard's biotics. His teeth gritted in concentration, Shepard carefully Pulled the man above the ghosts to set him down safely by the side of the haunted cistern. "Cut him loose," Shepard ordered angrily, before raising his shotgun and firing at the mass of ghosts below.

As the pellets passed harmlessly through the incorporeal beings, Shepard raised his voice and yelled, **"Ghost! Show yourself!"**

"Why hello, dear," a ghostly voice purred from his left. Spinning on his heel, Shepard faced down a ghost so well-defined that she almost seemed human. Insubstantial blonde hair hung down her back, and a slight dimple shone on her right cheek. Gritting his teeth in fear, the Marine tried to ignore the ghost's inch-long fangs and dead eyes that belonged to a faraway corpse.

"Howdy," he announced loudly, his suit-enhanced voice echoing around the dark room. "Time fer you ta leave, ghost," he ordered, trying to quell the shakes. "What's yer name, anyway?"

The shade grinned. "Call me Corpsetaker." A pack of ghosts swarmed and flew like a pack of locusts to Shepard's left, and the Marine cursed as the ghosts flew by him. He turned back to Corpsetaker to see the ghost disturbingly close, still wearing that too-wide smile.

The vampire-like fangs danced around her mouth as the ghost spoke: "There are some advantages to being dead. I meant to take this little one, but you've brought me a far greater treat right here! Let's see if his mind is as skilled as his body."

The ghost touched his forehead even as he fired at it, and the world disappeared.

* * *

><p>Shepard opened his eyes to a blasted wasteland and a Vindicator rifle. The familiar gun improbably flew by his head, pulled by a gust of wind, bringing a whisper of conversation with it. The Marine almost absently grabbed the weapon from the air, the familiar weight comforting in his hands.<p>

The ground was littered with weapons and bodies. Katana shotguns lay next to too-small corpses, while a Phalanx pistol rested a hands-breadth away from a hardsuited human. Withered trees scattered the barren land, vying for place with a few stone obelisks. A globe flanked by pillars shone down from above; familiar faces twinkled in the dark sky. The wasteland continued out to the edge of his vision, fading into grey nothingness at the edges.

It was bleak and grey, dotted with occasional bright plants struggling to survive among poisonous weeds. Belts of razorwire and locked gates barred the path to a cemetery filled with tombstones, and a tiny cabin with a family of ghosts standing on the porch. Shepard turned his eyes from the bodies, trying desperately to avoid seeing dead comrades and family.

"Inside my own mind, huh?" Shepard scuffed the ground, raising a small plume of dust. "Thought there'd be more tits here."

He stumbled as a massive quake shook the ground, sending dust and discarded guns clattering. A sudden shriek made him spin around towards the grey nothingness behind him, where a snarling and barely-human creature had just stumbled through the veil. The creature opened too many eyes and raised uneven arms to rend him open; Shepard drilled it in the chest until it dropped. As the mutated thing fell into the dirt, the Marine grimaced as far-off growls and muted shrieks let him know that he wasn't alone.

"This is my pisshole! Get yer own!" he yelled out into the nothingness. Mocking laughter was the only response.

He shaped the ground, raising sandbags and firing lanes from his memory of Altahe's basic fortifications. Quickly digging in mental Barriers, Shepard explored outward for the enemy even as his will doubled, tripled, and split into distinct points of light.

It felt...natural, he mused. Controlling so much movement should have been impossible, but running his mind's defenses felt like fitting a hand into a well-worn glove. The ground warped and buckled as he dug defenses and raised walls, absently wondering about how his enemy would breach them. Almost by reflex, the Marine took a position in a central dugout as the pinpoints of thought and will solidified into dead men he used to know. "Sitrep," he asked out loud, looking at the unfolding tac screens to distract himself from the ruined face of his neighbor on Mindoir.

The battle - for Shepard, it couldn't be anything else - was joined.

The battle began slowly, as Shepard repelled scouting strikes and feints from the homicidal ghost. The ground shifted and solidified as man and specter poured will into it; their war gave Shepard's mindscape substance and definition through his fight to hold it.

The longer he fought in the mental war, the more distinct it became in his mind. The mental Barriers that he held like his own biotics became bunkers and firebreaks, painful memories forming black barbed wire along the perimeter. Seizing on the impulse, Shepard pushed his memories of fear and spite out to the edges of his mind; the ground became twisted and sizzled like burning flesh. Turning his ever-present anger into a singular force, Shepard mentally 'looked' outward for the enemy.

The enemy's attack was slow and cautious, quick probing strikes testing the ground of his mindscape before pulling back. Shepard could distantly sense flashes of foreign thoughts and emotions, twisted into something almost unrecognizable. He caught moments of memories, flinching from the memory of a tortured woman screaming as a hooded man leaned over her. Sighting on the foreign invader, Shepard fired his anger like artillery.

The enemy flinched under the psychic assault, quickly retreating into the indeterminate gray at the edge of his mindscape. Bringing his hate forward, Shepard threw his emotions like cannon shells; the blasted mindscape shuddered under each impact, the yells of long-past battlefields fading after each explosion.

Shepard held his mind with pure force of will, straining himself to meet each probing attack with overwhelming power. He could feel his grip weakening as the enemy probed at the edges of his mind; he struck out against each blow, feeling his strength drift away as he did.

Memories flew past him in a constant stream: thoughts of home and ships and friends danced at the edges of his vision. With a stab of horror, Shepard watched his one memory of Sawtooth Creek and the time he'd spent there vanish as the enemy's shades overran more of his mind. With duty driving him on, the N operative kept trying to fight the unfamiliar battle.

He struck at shadows, spent his strength chasing ghosts, and abandoned the edges of his mindscape as the enemy slowly overran them. It was a war he didn't know how to fight, and he was losing. Gritting his teeth and bringing up more memories of Akuze, Shepard dug in to hold his ground.

It wasn't enough.

Shepard had brute force on his side, but no subtlety. He matched his enemy in might, but failed utterly in wits and speed. His positions were outmaneuvered, his offensive strength spent against false positions and enticing decoys. Ground down by mental warfare, Shepard retreated from his own mind as the enemy gleefully advanced.

He surrendered body and mind, falling back. Howling ghosts swarmed at the edges of his mind, overwhelming strongpoints held by Shepard's memories of dead men and flooding killzones with wisps of the Corpsetaker's own thoughts and memories. Distantly, Shepard could feel his own body collapsing to the ground as he lost control over parts of his own mind.

It was time to retreat and dig in. Shepard gathered his greatest secrets, from his time as an Eighter to what little he'd gathered about his parents. He dug them in a bunker made of duty and courage, salting the fields around them with memories of Akuze and Mindoir. As the howling ghosts attacked, the Marine abandoned control over his own mind and held every scrap of his will over his one strongpoint.

The swirl of ghosts swarming around his last strongpoint parted for a moment, and a single figure walked forward. Shepard squinted his eyes, trying to make out what it was exactly, but the creature kept shifting in front of him. A withered old man's face disappeared, to be replaced by a snarling wolf, which quickly morphed into the husk of a human held up by metal cords. The zombie looked at him and grinned; even in the mental landscape, the ghost's fangs hung like reminders of its true nature.

"'S real bad manners, to show up uninvited," Shepard croaked, feeling exhausted from the grueling mental combat.

"I've never been known for my social graces," the withered zombie remarked. With a sudden _snap!_ of displacing air, it was replaced by the same disturbingly cute young woman. "Then again, no one really appreciates the value of mind-flaying anyone who disagrees." She gave a wide, toothy grin. "Call me Corpsetaker, meat."

Shepard grimaced. "Fuck you."

Corpsetaker waved her hand lazily. "See? A little mind-flaying fixes bad attitudes like that. Now, let's see what secrets you've been holding back." Shepard steadied himself, though the milling ghosts trampling across his mind didn't try to swarm his final defense.

"_I'm sorry, Lieutenant. So far as we can tell, she just appeared out of nowhere-"_

"_I'll always love you, honey, don't you forget that. Subject One, activate Tempest Protocol, passcode MD2170-"_

"_I'll cut the crap. If any of you talk to anyone outside of the Moria Project - N Ops, high command, __anyone__ - then you disappear. Simple as-"_

Shepard jerked his head up as he realized his mistake. Gritting his teeth, he reinforced his mental defenses and forced himself to relax and stop thinking about...about That Stuff. The young woman smiled broadly, her cheek dimpling slightly, as she traced incomplete patterns in the air.

"My, my, my. You've really been holding out on me, you little devil!" She huffed, crossing her arms as she looked out over the blasted landscape and the heavily-defended bunker planted in it. Appraising Shepard's formidable final defense, she huffed and cheerfully remarked, "I'll be back soon, I promise. Don't forget your basic motor skills while I'm gone."

The howling ghosts continued swarming around Shepard's last defense as Corpsetaker's avatar rose skyward, where indistinct shadows gathered. As dream returned to reality, Shepard felt his eyes open under someone else's control.

* * *

><p>Fitz knew it was all wrong even before the Commander's eyes opened. He could hear the screams inside, even if they weren't coming out loud proper, and it was so damn wrong that it made him want to scream too, like when Aristedes would beat Tim and-<p>

Fitz held onto the wall to steady himself, breathing heavily. Aristedes was dead meat, but the Commander might be too. He squinted, trying to figure out who was yellin' what, but it all got so jumbled up in here. He could hear the ghost's screaming from inside the Commander's head, but Shepard's voice was still in there, too.

It was all wrong. It wasn't supposed to happen like this. There was supposed to be Dresden, and Molly, and the whole damn world was sliding off the rails. The Commander's voice grated and cracked. **"R-r-run! Hahahahaha!"** As the giant got to his feet, Fitz did exactly that.

He dashed back up the stairs to the factory floor, where the fire was starting to spread. The ghosts shrieked and howled as the smoldering blaze burned higher, and it wouldn't be long before there were cops and firefighters and _damnit, we are __leaving__!_ Torn there between fear and duty, Fitz hesitated under the pale moonlight.

"God_damnit!_" he yelled, to no one in particular. "Fuck! Fuck! Why does it always haveta go so fuckin' bad!"

He spun on his heel and punched the nearby machinery, the solid metal barely budging as the teen hurt his wrist on the solid steel. Crying from the pain and the fear, Fitz cradled his head on his knees and sobbed.

* * *

><p>"<em>Are you lost, young man?"<em>

Fitz opened his eyes. There was something there, hovering in front of him. He could barely see it past the smoldering brickwork and choking smoke of the old factory, but it was still there.

"_You're alone. What's brought you here?"_

It was indistinct and fuzzy in the moonlight, but Fitz could swear that he was looking at a definite shape. A line, maybe; curved a little, shining like a star.

"_Are you frightened?"_

Fitz hiccuped. "Y-yeah." He reflexively dug his nails into his palm; damnit, don't _ever_ tell 'em you're scared! Aristedes hates-

"_That's understandable, young man."_ Fitz could see more than just the one shining star, now that he looked closer. It almost seemed like a-

"_Yes, young man, I am a ghost too. This is...not my usual territory, but_," the shadow paused for a moment, _"these are not exactly normal times_."

Fitz tried to clear his throat. "My-my friends are down there. There's something bad down there, a lot of bad things."

He could see it more distinctly; it was the blurry shape of a man, holding a sword that shone brightly in the dark. _"Indeed? Tell me, young man: what would you do?"_

Fitz gulped. "I-," he struggled against his fear. "I guess I'll have to go and-and help." He felt his knees quivering like jelly. "I-I'm scared, sir."

He could see the ghost much clearer: it was a short Asian guy, little spectacles and all, but something about the man made Fitz stand a little taller. _"Yet there are dark and evil things down there. Why go?"_

Fitz tried to find the words. "Be-because my friends are down there. Because Mort, and Tilly, and Shepard, the only guys who've ever done anything nice for me, are in trouble." He swallowed, his throat dry, "A-and because they'd do the same for me."

The little Asian man smiled, and Fitz felt a little better. _"Such courage, from one so young. How could I not return it in kind?"_ The ghost drew that shining sword, the light reaching to the ends of the factory floor. _"Come, young Fitzgerald. My name is Shiro, and his place has been dark for far too long."_

* * *

><p>Tilly knew, without a doubt, when the ghost had possessed Shepard.<p>

He'd always had a knack for reading people. "Too-Tall Tilly" had relied on interrogations and questioning to really understand a case; though other agents preferred lab reports, he liked getting hands-on. He understood the people around him.

The creature next to him, though it wore his skin, was not Shepard. Tilly didn't need to meet its eyes to see that. "Over here!" he yelled as the not-Shepard rose to its feet, and ducked around a metal pillar. Fitz had a good survivor's instinct, any street kid had to, but he needed time to escape.

As the _pitter-patter_ of small feet echoed from the faraway concrete steps, Tilly sagged in relief. "Now it's just me and a possessed psychopath, in the basement of a burning building," he whispered to himself. "Shepard?" he called out, not really expecting a reply.

"**Little Shepard went away, off to hills far away,"** Shepard's gravely voice sing-songed. Tilly winced at how off-key it sounded.

"Hey! Ghost! Playing up the 'creepy kid' act only works if you're actually a creepy kid!" the FBI agent yelled back. He ducked as Shepard's shotgun took out the pillar he'd been hiding behind a moment ago.

The Avenger rifle felt heavy in his hands, and Tilly wondered about the futuristic weapon. Was the Marine simply helping others by handing out his weapons, or was there something else involved? Was Shepard paranoid enough to imagine a time like this, when _he_ was the real threat?

"Corpsetaker!" Tilly yelled. "Let's talk!"

The shotgun blast was a little closer this time. **"Of course. I've got plenty to say."** not-Shepard's voice echoed through the dark basement.

Tilly scrambled backwards. Before the lights had gone out, he'd seen Mort here. Carefully picking his way across the dust covering the floor, he nearly jumped as his foot smacked into something solid: Mortimer himself. Hunching over the man as he cut Mortimer's bonds with a belt knife, Tilly desperately wished that he had body armor which could withstand a-

**BOOM!** The shot nearly took his head off; Tilly's last-minute flinch was the only thing that had saved him. Rolling awkwardly to the side, Tilly sighted blindly into the dark and fired a burst. A human snarl let him know that he'd struck paydirt.

"**This charade has gone on long enough,"** Shepard's voice whispered in that too-loud growl, and the basement lit up as the soldier used his bio-whatsits. Tilly cursed and ducked, but he could feel the ground slipping away beneath his feet. He tried to sight the Avenger rifle on the possessed man, but every move was like swimming in molasses. The swirl of ghosts drifted around the two men, though any ghost which got too close to Shepard disappeared in a swirl of light and a howl of agony.

"**Mmm..."** not-Shepard said, laughing. **"Your mind looks tasty, and I'm hungry."**

"_No."_

The ghost possessing Shepard flinched as a sword of pure light cut between it and Tilly. Scrambling away on his hands and feet, Tilly watched as the sword-wielding ghost fought like it still lived. Free from not-Shepard's compulsion, the swarm of hungry ghosts attacked the newcomer, yet the shining spectre was unafraid.

He flew through the air, the shining beam of light in his hand almost casually slicing through a howling ghost's sternum as it passed. An overhead chop, and one of the Greys vanished in a terrified scream, its defenses worthless against the light. Blocking an attacking ghost with outstretched claws, the spectre sidestepped the crazed man before chopping upwards to slice the creature from belly to head.

The entire exchange had taken less than five seconds.

"_I won't accept this. For everything, there is a season. Your spring and summer are long past, and your autumn decayed in the winter storms. It's time for new life."_

"**Ha! The ghost of Shiro himself, come back to challenge me!" **Shepard's body laughed, though Tilly could feel the venom behind the ghost's words. **"Do you think your little parlor tricks are enough, dead knight? Do you really think you have a hope of stopping me?"** The wizened man's ghost remained still and calm, and Corpsetaker's shadow seemed to lengthen as she laughed.** "I have the Starborn. I have my thralls. I have my power, and with your strength and your blade eventually serving me, I'll have true Power at my fingertips. What do you have, dead knight?"**

"_I have faith."_

Tilly could almost _hear_ Corpsetaker's smirk.** "Let's see if that's enough."**

* * *

><p>Shepard felt his body move to the attack, the mental invader inexperienced with his body but learning disturbingly fast. His arm pumped forward, sending out a sloppy biotic Throw that the ghost of the tiny Japanese man easily dodged. <em>"I feel a rather disturbing empathy for your plight,"<em> he remarked, his sword cutting a too-near ghost into shreds. _"What ties you to this world? What bonds outlast death?"_

Corpsetaker raised his shotgun, blowing chunks out of the far wall. The shining ghost stood, unharmed, as the tiny pellets passed through him without leaving a mark. _"Your new host seems rather ill-equipped for one of your talents, mind-robber,"_ he remarked casually.

"**Die, damn you!" **Shepard's body punched out another Throw, the biotic force catching the ghost and making his form ripple like fog.** "Just! Fucking! Die!"**

Corpsetaker punched out another Throw; the biotic power passed through Shiro, but it seemed to hold him in place for a moment. A grey-glowing ghost, bolder and likely crazier than the others, took this moment to attack. Though it clawed at Shiro's side, the white ghost simply grimaced at the still images flowing from its side and sliced at the grey-boiling shade trying to eat it. The grey one disappeared in a silent, anguished howl, and Shiro took a guard position again.

The surrounding ghosts - and Corpsetaker - didn't remain idle. Corpsetaker threw another Throw to pin Shiro while three fairly well-defined ghosts paired up to flank Shiro. Though the white shade kept them at bay with his shining weapon, the swarms of purposeless ghosts were starting to drift around him and cut off his chance of escape. Still limping from the previous strike, Shiro waited patiently as Corpsetaker temporarily pinned him in place with another Throw.

Corpsetaker laughed, the horrible grating noise bouncing off the brick walls. **"Silly shade. What did you hope to gain by fighting me, remnant?"**

Shiro's ghost bowed its head._ "Time."_

A hand touched the back of his neck, and Shepard felt a towering mental presence overshadow his mental landscape. "Time's up," Mortimer Lindquist snarled.

It was a short and brutal mental battle. Shepard watched in awe as Mortimer faced off against Corpsetaker, the dark room glowing brighter than daylight as the ghost-talker ripped into his target. He pulled the wraith from Shepard's head, standing up on tiptoes so that his fingertips could barely touch the edges of the towering Marine's helmet.

From inside his fortified mental holdout, Shepard watched as Corpsetaker tried to defend from inside the conquered mindscape. She reshaped what she could, hurriedly creating a maze of defenses as Mortimer's Presence loomed over them.

Mortimer didn't battle her inside Shepard's mind; he didn't need to.

The ectomancer yanked his hands away from Shepard's head, pulling an intangible, shining strand from it. The Marine's mindscape lurched as the invading ghost was momentarily pulled upwards. She resisted, spreading corruption across the ground, but her mental domination was too recent and Shepard's resistance too fierce. Shepard saw his chance.

The Marine, just now beginning to grasp what was possible in this mental war, reached into his remaining memories. Corpsetaker had raided his knowledge of battle to learn how to use his body, and for the life of him, Shepard couldn't remember a single Alliance-standard weapon. He thought further back instead, back to the farm and the blood and that shitty old Mattock rifle. He'd never fully understood what had happened at Mindoir; all he had to go on were his mother's last words and that damn gun.

The weapon appeared in his hands like it was made for them, the stock still dripping red human blood and the muzzle dark with batarian gore. He raised the rifle up, the gun sighting on the ghost still struggling to keep itself attached to him. Mortimer's intangible lasso was lashed around her, the tiny man still exerting his will through it.

Shepard pushed out, mentally pulling his own mind away from the invader. Corpsetaker resisted, trying to pull herself back towards it for safety, but with Mortimer limiting her the battle lost its subtlety and became one of pure willpower.

And Shepard would not lose a battle of sheer will.

"_**Out."**_

Corpsetaker was shot away from Shepard's mind as the mental construct 'fired,' yanked into the open between the tiny ectomancer and the towering Marine - and the ghost of the old Japanese man with a shining sword.

The sword cut once.

* * *

><p>Shepard tipped the bottle back. The amber liquid inside sloshed gently, burbling as it drained away into his mouth. Choking down the cheap whiskey, Shepard tossed the half-filled bottle at the cathedral's brick buttress and watched as the alcohol and fragments of glass shot out into the night.<p>

"'M gonna ask a question now, ta no one in particular," he announced to the dark night. "There's gonna be some creepy-crawly behind me interested in talkin', an' it's gonna say a few words ta make me more confused than when I started."

Shepard paused. "Ghosts. Who were they? Why...all this?"

"An old dead man, who decided not to move on. The world's a little safer with his shade keeping things in order." Shepard turned his head to see an utterly nondescript janitor, his nametag reading _"Jake"_ yet again, sitting down on the steps above him.

The janitor grinned. "People at Chicago's O'Hare Airport have glimpsed sights of an old Japanese man with a cane. Travelers seem to find their way better when he's nearby."

Shepard grimaced at Uriel, the Light of God. "How does that even make sense?"

Uriel just smiled. "Have a little faith."

"'S a fuckin' cop-out answer, and you know it."

"You're talking to an archangel, boy," Uriel said with that annoying grin. "Faith's kind of the point here."

"Bullshit answer. Faith didn't stop slavers, or maws, or save me from myself. Faith didn't bring me family back, or make things right. The _fuck _is it good for anyway?"

"It brought you here," Uriel said steadily. "Despite all you've seen - despite all you've done," he said with a slight grimace, "I still have faith in you." He trailed off, almost uncertain.

"Heh," Shepard said quietly, staring out at the glowing city skyline. "So you've got faith 'n a burnout alcoholic who fixes problems by shootin' 'em." The Marine glanced up at the nondescript archangel. "Man, - OK, _archangel_ - I think you got more screws loose than I do."

"Perhaps," the archangel agreed noncommittally. "Water?"

Shepard snorted, but grabbed the plastic bottle and chugged greedily. He looked back up at the humble janitor: "I need to know. What you said up there," he asked, struggling on the words, "before the wizard got there, and before it all went to shit...is it true? Is it all true?"

Uriel nodded somberly. "Every word." He looked down at the soldier with what might have been pity on his face: "Men like you, Shepard, get the worst burden of all: choice. You'll have to choose between easy and difficult, right and wrong, death and life. I can't save you from those choices, any more than I could save you from yourself. The universe will balance on the edge of a knife, Shepard, and your burden is to choose which way it falls."

Shepard kept drinking the water as the archangel disappeared without a trace.

* * *

><p>"Wake up."<p>

Murphy thanked the paranoia that her old training sergeant had instilled in her for sleeping with Shepard's pistol in her hand. With the weapon dialed down to a mere "oh Lord my poor hand" yield, she carefully nudged the weapon under the hospital covers until it pointed at the newcomer who'd silently entered her room. Her left hand stabbed frantically on the button to call her nurse.

She tried to stare the intruder down, but her eyes seemed to constantly wander off from the man. The clean-shaven man was utterly nondescript: he wore a charcoal-grey coat over dark slacks, a short haircut, and carried a small, slim briefcase. His dark skin and plain features offered no clues towards his background, and his face seemed almost perfectly neutral.

"Hello, _gobierno_-man," Murphy croaked, inwardly cursing her limited Spanish. The man's tone carried a hint of a South American accent - Venezuelan, perhaps?

The man inclined his head fractionally. "Lieutenant."

"Didn't you hear, G-man? I'm retired."

"The evidence suggests otherwise," he remarked dryly, setting the slim briefcase down on the table at the end of her hospital bed. He tossed a plastic bag on the covers in front of Murphy; she grabbed it with her free hand, barely resisting the urge to shake the IV needle free that still hung from her forearm like a giant plastic leech.

The bag contained two vials, one with a single hair and the other holding a small chunk of flesh. Each one was neatly stoppered and labeled: _K. Murphy_, and _Unknown_.

"There's more," the nondescript man announced.

"There always is, G-man," Murphy sighed. "Let me guess: you're with the same people who attacked us at St. Mary's."

"An inaccurate description," G-man said in a clipped tone, "but close enough. My former associates and I regret the trouble we've caused you, but circumstances necessitated our quick action."

"Cut to the chase," Murphy rasped. "The surgeons are supposed to dig one of your associate's 9-millimeter regrets out of my lung tomorrow, G-man. You've got trackers on us," _and probably the means to kill us with it_, she didn't add, "so what do you want?"

"Indeed," he said blandly. "Lieutenant, my associates and I have been charged with recovering an item of some significance. We need an artifact for this purpose, a map of some significance, which we were led to believe would be in your possession."

"Your buddy back at St. Mary's kept asking about a map, too," Murphy mused out loud, her fingers tightening on the massive hidden pistol. "Of course, then my big friend took his head off with glowy magic stuff and punchsploded his buddies."

G-man's face tightened fractionally. "Lieutenant, though I have considerable respect for your work here, I _must_ have that map. Give me the location of the artifact you call 'Little Chicago,' or the consequences will be...severe."

Murphy barked a short laugh. "You're behind the times, G-man. We burned that into cinders to keep you from getting your hands on it."

"No," the suited man whispered. He stared at Murphy for a second; his eyes widened. "No!" he yelled. Murphy used the distraction to reach for her call button again, stabbing the plastic until her finger ached.

G-man's face contorted into a pained grimace, the first real emotion she'd seen from him yet. "Damnit. The _chacm_-" he caught himself, glaring at Murphy, "certain actors in play will be somewhat displeased with this." He straightened his suit, his breathing slowing. "Lieutenant, I hope you never realize the enormity of what you've done. I assure you that once these current troubles are over, my associates will be paying you a visit to express their grievances."

Murphy showed her teeth. "And if they're dead first?"

The non-entity gave a humorless grin of his own. "Lieutenant, if they're dead, then I will sincerely pray for your soul and that of every human on this planet. And I haven't prayed since I killed my childhood pastor at age seven."

He tipped a nonexistent hat. "Goodbye, Lieutenant. Get that call button fixed."

Murphy yanked the call button up to eye level to see a neat cut in the plastic cord, the emergency device broken and useless. Realizing her mistake, she looked back up to where the strange man had just stood, but the two vials of hair and flesh were the only testament that he'd ever been there.

A tiny, handwritten note read: _We will be in touch, Lieutenant._

* * *

><p>"Whiskey?"<p>

Tilly took the proffered bottle, sniffing the contents before holding it away with a grimace. "Old Thompson? You _drink_ that stuff?"

"Survived the Bucket Game," Shepard mumbled. "Ain't no booze can scare me now."

Tilly had a bad hunch. "The bucket game?"

"Choose yer booze. Fill the bucket. Drink 'till it's gone - or you are," he amended. "Also, some guys mix up the buckets."

Shaking his head and sitting down beside Shepard, Tilly snagged the whiskey and tried some. It tasted exactly as bad as he remembered. "It's funny, you know," he said slowly, trying to wish the awful taste away, "your accent seems to get _better_ when you get drunk, instead of worse."

Shepard laughed. "The accent's an affectation. I was born with it, but Alliance N training drills out most personal identifiers like that." He shrugged, his tone lapsing from the neutral urbane accent to the thick hill accent that Tilly associated with the man. "Keep it about ta remind me 'bout mah roots 'n stuff. Kinda get lost in me past sometimes, so I lose meself in the good bits."

Tilly didn't have anything to say in return to that. The two men sat in semi-companionable silence, each one lost in their own thoughts, until the FBI agent decided to speak his mind.

"I'm frightened," Tilly said impulsively.

"Of what?" Shepard asked as he quietly sipped the lukewarm whiskey.

"Y-you," the FBI agent responded, inwardly cursing his stutter.

Shepard frowned, then shrugged his shoulders. "Fair enough."

"I go after bad men, Shepard." Tilly found his voice steadying as he returned to talking about the one true love in his life. "I hunt down murderers, kidnappers, rapists - scum of the earth. I don't even know what sort of bodycount you have, Shepard, but I _do_know that you've killed more people than I care to count in two days, right in front of me."

Shepard nodded, throwing his head back and taking a swig from the bottle.

"I uphold the law, Shepard. It's what I do, it's my _life_. I watch you break it just by existing." Tilly snarled, amazed by his own anger. "I-I'm a cop, damnit! I keep people alive! They're pulling corpses out of St. Mary's Church right now, dead men from a house of God, and I know you're the one who killed them! Rudolph, scumball that he was - he was a _cop_, and you shot him like a dog!"

The Marine glanced up, his face a blank mask. Inwardly, Tilly wondered just how complete that neutral expression really went: how much did Shepard truly care?

"And," he trailed off, his anger spilling away, "and I hate it because it's necessary. I hate myself for breaking the thing I cherish the most, because I have to in order to save it."

The Marine shrugged. "Big bad ghost is gone, couple of other baddies are dead or fled. Should be able to close your eyes and go back to ignorance, did you want that for your life."

Tilly exhaled, looking over the skyline as the dawn broke. "So that's it? Is this the end?"

Shepard snorted, amused. "End? Hell, we're just getting started."


End file.
